Gender Bias
by barspoon
Summary: SakuraxNarutoxSasuke Gender-swap PWP. Setting: Post-war *AU*. Little boys are made of snips and snails and puppy-dogs' tails. Little girls are made of sugar and spice and everything nice. Young adults are made of hormones and cussing and an identity crisis waiting to happen. Especially when you wake up in a body that's the wrong gender... ("Romance" is frenemies with benefits?)
1. Being a Dude Sucks

**[** Right...so this is what happens when I try to fill a prompt for a kink meme that doesn't have my particular kink pairing in it. It's definitely a challenge, but it is fun. It was supposed to be a short PWP, but I am incapable of doing that on demand because I'm neurotic and I'm always overthinking stuff. I tried to keep everyone as in character as possible, but considering the prompt was "Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura all swap genders and have sex"...well...I still TRIED. XD

No sex in this chapter, just lots of awkward and a little...self-exploration. **]**

**Being a Dude Sucks**

Sasuke's return to Konoha after the Fourth Shinobi War had not been a very smooth or swift transition. However, Tsunade had done her best to assuage the fears of 98% of the village (the citizen masses and most of the rank and file shinobi) that wanted him executed or jailed in restraints, while still attempting to placate the 2% (nearly ALL of the strongest ninja in Konoha) who insisted he be given a chance to redeem himself and prove he could be trustworthy. When Sasuke agreed – although very reluctantly – to the chakra-suppressing bands around his wrists, the concession gave Tsunade enough of a foothold to officially reinstate the Uchiha as a probationary Genin under the condition that he would be assigned as a permanent member of Team 7 until he was re-assessed in a year.

She had fought hard to add the stipulation that only Naruto was required to be on missions with Sasuke for the raw power needed to subdue the ex-traitor if he should run wild, and that a constant ANBU guard was just a waste of resources. She made sure that Sakura and Kakashi were able to swap out for the third member of the team as a stabilizing force to keep the two young men from obliterating half the countryside in a petty brawl. Sakura was always needed at the hospital, and her medical expertise was requested often from clients inside and outside of the Land of Fire. Kakashi's skill set was far too valuable to be squandered by constantly baby-sitting his two former students, a sentiment to which he had waspishly protested.

He had even gone so far as to file ALL the correct paperwork to request three months sabbatical without pay so he could freely accompany any mission Naruto and Sasuke were sent on during those first rocky and tense months where Naruto had to carry an unconscious Sasuke back home more often than not. Tsunade almost approved it. Almost. The problem was, the Daimyo of the Land of Fire had a daughter that was being targeted by unknown forces, and he had requested Kakashi by name. It was too soon after the war, and the fragile political peace between all the Countries had to be maintained at all costs.

All in all, it worked out that Sasuke was in the village under discreet ANBU watch half the time, and out in the field with Naruto pestering the shit out of him the rest of the time. Sakura sighed heavily and rolled her eyes as the three of them made their way swiftly through the trees of the unfamiliar forest. The seals on her palms tingled in reaction to Sasuke's growing irritation, his chakra spiking just high enough at an erratic rate to trigger the connection with the cuffs at his wrists. And, to be honest, she really couldn't blame him...

"What do you mean 'what are you trying to say?'?!" Naruto snapped in exasperation. "I'm not _trying_ to say anything! I _am_ saying you look like a walking advertisement for a bondage convention! If you want to keep the man-skirt, that's fine, it's not...you know...really _that_ bad. At least it isn't frilly and crap, but COME ON! You don't need ten feet of rope as thick as your wrist tied in a bow around you like some kind of weird kinky 'unwrap-me-and-tie-me-back-up-cause-I'm-your-birthday-present-this-year' thing!"

There was a silent pause, crackling with barely-suppressed killing intent, and Sakura hazarded a glance over her shoulder at the two following behind her. Sasuke was looking straight ahead, his left eye twitching and the muscles in his jaw clenched tight. She had just been about to say something to halt the 'conversation', but Naruto was glancing away with an almost guilty expression. When he looked back at Sasuke, there was something akin to an apologetic smile lighting his face.

"I can loan you a belt. It's no problem," Naruto said with delicate generosity.

Sasuke kicked him through a tree. Sakura groaned and scrubbed her face as she came to a halt on a branch. The annoying familiarity of the kerfuffle did nothing for her rising blood pressure. Unfortunately, neither did the conjured images of flushed alabaster skin straining against intricately knotted ropes, lean muscle taut and rippling with the effort of making it look like he was trying to resist when she knew better. When she _knew_ what he really wanted was to be punished in the most delicious ways. Taking a few very deep breaths to shove the thoughts aside where she could ponder them another day, she dropped to the ground and stalked her way toward the yowling defiant complaints of Naruto.

It wasn't difficult to pinpoint his location as he continued to rant about how he wasn't trying to offend Sasuke because he had a perverted rope fetish, he was just concerned about how all of it was so obvious and Sasuke's re-assessment was coming up in two months which meant they were going to be looking at every little tiny detail, and, seriously, flaunting an S&M kink was only going to get him stuck on probation for another year with those stupid chakra-bracelet-things, didn't he KNOW THAT?! Sakura fully expected to have to physically drag the two apart..._again_...but she was startled to see the situation had shifted as she paused next to a craggy old tree.

Sasuke's restraints were sensitive to spikes of killing intent and a specific high level of chakra manipulation; they would induce an immediate state of unconsciousness if he violated those limits, and before that time the seals on Sakura's hands that were connected to the cuffs would alert her to his state so she could try to prevent the worst case scenario. They also wouldn't allow Sasuke to stray too far from her. It was a leash, but at least it was one that gave him more freedom than the jail cell so many had desperately wanted to see him in. So, it was with terribly amused surprise that she watched as Sasuke whipped off his rope belt and hog-tied Naruto with it.

Then, he proceeded to steal the blond's belt, strap it around his own waist, and walk silently away in the direction of Konoha as if nothing had even happened. Sakura bit her lip to keep from laughing, canting her head and arching an eyebrow at Naruto's indignant red face as he cussed and rolled on the ground until he gave in and entered Biju Mode to destroy the bindings. He flashed his teeth in delighted irritation, dashing after the taller dark-haired young man with a thousand insults shining behind his blue eyes, so overwhelmingly eager to kick at the walls, fighting and shouting until Sasuke finally just gave the fuck up.

Until he finally just accepted the fact that he was home.

Sakura shook her head and followed behind them, easily catching up since Sasuke was simply strolling his way back toward the overgrown path that lead through the shadowed forest. Naruto's trousers slipped down his hips without the belt to hold them up, and Sakura snerked at the glimpse of bright green boxers with swirls of yellow and orange. Her eyes flicked over to the disappointingly shapeless mass of cloth that was Sasuke's lower half, and idly wondered if she could prod Naruto into getting Sasuke to lose the 'man-skirt'.

It was a tempting idea. Especially as she was reminded of what she could be seeing when Naruto raised his arms in frustration, inadvertently giving her a peek of sun-kissed skin and lean muscle that pointed down like arrows to the beginning of a toned curve that would fit just right against the palms of her hands and the spread of her fingers so she could squeeze those soft-hard muscles with far too much indulgence.

Shrugging and pushing the thoughts aside when Naruto flopped his arms down, clenching his fists and taking a deep breath to start in on whatever bait he'd latched onto, Sakura trotted forward and jabbed her knuckles into Naruto's shoulder to stop the fight before it started. They were half way through the forest, and the sun had already set. She wanted to get a few more miles behind them before making camp for the night, and after threatening them both with 'a healthy medicinal soup' for dinner she got the pair moving at a brisk pace through the trees again.

None of them saw it coming. And, really, there was no reason that they should have seen it or expected it the way that it happened. The village they'd passed through that morning hadn't warned them about anything serious, only a few withered elders mumbling strange ghost stories about the forest being dangerous at night. No one said why it was dangerous. No one said how it was dangerous. No one said anything about the flowers that bloomed once every 100 years, because that information had been lost through the generations.

Sakura felt Naruto's hand grabbing harshly at her wrist as her vision abruptly started fading to blocky greys. She frantically surged chakra into her limbs to keep them from folding, to grasp weakly at Naruto's sleeve, to keep herself there in the world of reality. She tried to open her clumsy mouth to say _anything_, but her tongue was too thick and lazy to speak, heedless of the desperation shrieking and howling in her chest. She was dimly aware of being pinned against Naruto's side, Sasuke's lifeless hand bumping against her thigh, her feet getting tangled in someone else's, the grey-black fog being washed out with a haze of gold-orange-red, and the shuddering feel of muscles at her back as Naruto roared in defiance.

Then it all vanished into nothing.

When Sakura opened her eyes to blink hazily at the sun-dappled ground, every square inch of her was prickling and tingling with uncomfortable pins and needles. Her shirt felt absurdly tight and constrictive, almost suffocating her as the material dug into her shoulders and armpits, and her bra was cutting into her sides like it was three sizes too small. Something was draped over the knapsack on her back, and as she struggled to get up she found her left leg trapped as well. She allowed herself a moment to breathe a sigh of relief as Naruto groaned next to her and she heard Sasuke grunt in pain as the weight on her leg flinched. At least they were all alive and together.

Shifting clumsily with the weight of lethargy still clouding their minds, all three of them worked quietly on untangling themselves from each other. It wasn't until she was sitting there facing the others that panic started to set in. Naruto was yawning hugely with his head thrown back, stretching his arms over his head till the joints popped and crackled. Sakura could see the soft curve of his waist as his shirt lifted up with the movement.

She could see _the soft curve_ of his waist. The tapered lines and planes were gone, and his abs were a gentle shadow of the hard definition they had once held. Very slowly she let her gaze move to Sasuke, and in an instant she felt her worst nightmares crashing into her.

He was staring at her chest. GAWKING. At any other time she would have been crowing inside, but there was a horrified shock to Sasuke's expression. Her shirt was way too tight. Her arms and legs felt kind of bulky now that the pins and needles had subsided. She fisted her hands into the material of her skirt as her mind shattered, resisting the overwhelming urge to look down, to pull at her shirt and tug at the hem of her shorts because she could _feel_ that something that WASN'T SUPPOSED TO BE THERE tucked and squished between her tightly closed thighs.

Then Naruto screamed, breaking the tension and stirring everything up into a maelstrom of panic because his voice had pitched high with the _feminine_ sound. Sakura and Sasuke snapped their heads over to look at him as he jerked the collar of his jacket and stared down into his shirt. Well, there was no avoiding it anymore, and Sakura looked down at herself. There was a short moment of heavy silence, then all three of them looked up simultaneously to cry out in a mixture of fury, terror, confusion and disbelief.

"I'M A MAN!" "I'M A WOMAN!" "I'M AN A-CUP!"

Sakura blinked at Sasuke, her tumultuous thoughts briefly screeching to a halt as she turned to look at Naruto's enraged and disappointed face. "...what?" She asked quietly, still not sure she'd heard him right, and only barely managing to note the oddity of the orange shadowing around his gold eyes. Why was he in Sennin Mode?

"They're like two little bee stings!" Naruto railed, flailing his arms in angry protest. "I bet I don't even need a bra! Just look at how tiny they are!" He said, lifting his jacket and shirt up to display his woeful circumstance.

"PUT THAT SHIT AWAY!" Sakura shouted, cracking her fist over the top of Naruto's head and yanking his shirt back down.

She winced at the pull of her clothing and the cut of her bra into her sides, shucking her backpack and reaching under her shirt to unsnap the now useless undergarment. Sighing and scratching at her hair, she was at least glad that Naruto's ridiculousness jolted her back into focus. She was the team commander and this was no time to panic. Although...

"You seem to be taking this obscene situation rather well, all things considered," she groused, turning her back to the boys (girls?) so she could unzip her top and take the stupid bra all the way off and shove it into her backpack. A few strategic tears at the shoulders of her shirt made the thing wearable if she could get used to having it open.

"I invented Sexy Jutsu," he drawled. "I don't have an issue walking around as a girl. Besides, I finally kicked Kurama's ass hard enough to get him to stop rolling on the floor laughing, and he says that since we got out of there so fast his chakra might have interfered enough to keep the changes from being permanent."

"'MIGHT HAVE'?!" Sasuke screeched, his (her?) face flushing crimson as he clamped his mouth shut and looked away in furiously indignant embarrassment.

"Come on, it's not that bad," Naruto shrugged.

Sasuke gave him a venomous glare, and Sakura felt the seals at her palms itch dangerously with the killing intent rolling off the Uchiha.

"We'd have been dead if we'd stayed there a minute longer," Naruto retorted stubbornly. "There's some kind of creepy flower that pollinates itself every 100 years using stupid amounts of some weird kind of nature chakra. Why the hell do you think I'm still stuck in Sennin Mode?! That shit was twisting your life energy and turning it inside out, so don't even try to bitch about the fact that you're still alive!"

While Sasuke gave absolutely no outward indication that he was at all mollified by the speech, Sakura could feel the tingling in her palms recede.

"What are you being so grumpy about, anyway?" Naruto asked, leaning back on her (his?) hands as she stretched her legs out. "You can still 'restore the Uchiha Clan' to your heart's content as a chick."

Aaaaand that tingly feeling was back.

Sakura sighed and quashed the sting of regret that came with Naruto's statement, letting the pair scrap and wrestle for a minute before standing up and prying them loose like a couple of misbehaving puppies. Well...maybe not puppies. She did grab them by the scruffs of their collars, but she focused chakra into her arms while she was doing it so she could hurl them both several meters away in opposite directions with splintered wood and clouds of dirt marking their paths. When they trudged back, picking grass and leaves out of their hair, she was literally toppled to her knees with the full impact of what Naruto had flippantly said. Sasuke could 'restore the Uchiha Clan' as a woman.

"Oi, Sakura-chan! Are you okay?" Naruto asked, sliding to her knees and placing her hands on Sakura's trembling shoulders.

Clutching her flat chest, she tried to close the unzipped shirt out of reflex even though THERE WAS NOTHING THERE TO HIDE BECAUSE SHE WASN'T A '**SHE**' ANYMORE! Sakura's breath came in ragged gasps, her _(**HIS**?!)_ heart thundering in her chest as the real significance of the changes ripped and clawed at her mind. But maybe it wasn't as real as it appeared! Maybe it wasn't...

Her fingers were on Naruto's abdomen in a blink of glowing green, and her brain was shrieking with what her senses were telling her. Dear god, Naruto and Sasuke really were women! _They were fertile and ovulating women!_ In a daze, she fumbled at her supply pouch for the little bottle of pills all kunoichi carried with them.

They weren't on Konoha lands yet. They were still out in the open, outside the protective walls. Vulnerable in their lack of knowledge. Grabbing the front of Naruto's jacket, Sakura snarled an order for the blonde to swallow as she popped a pill into Naruto's mouth. Naruto blinked her wide gold eyes and obeyed. Whether it was conscious or reflexive, she didn't care, because she was already jumping to her feet and attacking a stunned Sasuke with the same frantic wild force of will until the brunette gulped the pill down.

It took a moment for Sakura to calm himself (...herself?) down, sucking in deep breaths of air between clenched teeth and still scratching at the edges of a red shirt that simply couldn't be closed. Something soft brushed the side of his arm, and he whipped his head around to look into Naruto's quiet concerned eyes. She was squatting and balanced on the balls of her feet, knees drawn up with her arm wrapped around her shins and her head tilted at a worried angle as she held out her jacket.

"You'll catch a cold wearing your shirt open like that," Naruto offered, then broke into a wide mischievous grin that was so fake it made Sakura want to curl up into a ball and cry. "Not that I'm complaining, mind you. It's not every day that I get the pleasure of having my Sakura-chan flash me."

Sakura snorted a cough of helpless laughter, snatching the jacket and shoving Naruto back so the blonde could flail dramatically before sprawling onto her back. It was all a show, a sweet little lie. But the brown and orange jacket zipped up all the way, and it was warm and loose against his skin, smelling like summer winds and hope. He still had his chin tucked under the high collar of the jacket, easing himself into a relaxed and focused state when Sasuke shuffled forward. Arching a pink eyebrow, he looked up curiously as Sasuke reluctantly crouched down in front of him and held out her hand without meeting Sakura's gaze.

"What?" Sakura asked, more than a little bewildered.

Sasuke took a while to muster up whatever it was she wanted to say, pinching her lips in consternation as her cheeks lit up with color. "Give me the...the thing."

Sakura felt his own face starting to warm up as a flush of heat snaked its way through his belly in familiar but unfamiliar ways. "Ah...what 'thing'...?"

"I'm not an A-cup," Sasuke mumbled angrily, her face blooming scarlet as she jutted her hand demandingly forward.

Sakura's eyes strayed to the lumps beneath Sasuke's shirt, which she was trying to cover with an arm crossed over her chest. "Oh, right," Sakura nodded, pulling the bra out of his backpack and handing it over as discreetly as possible. Sasuke took it and immediately fled to the privacy of the trees.

"You know how to put that thing on?" Naruto called, lacing her hands behind her head as she lay on the ground.

Silence answered her, and Sakura felt the ghosting itch at his palms as Sasuke's chakra spiked in frustration.

"Technically you're not really supposed to know how, since you used to be a dude, and all," Naruto continued, a devious smile twitching at her lips.

"Then neither would you, so shut the hell up!" Sasuke's voice snapped from beyond the foliage.

Sakura bit his lip, though he didn't try to quell his amusement at how Sasuke had also just inadvertently admitted to not having much – or any – experience in dealing with bras at all. The humor was a radiating warmth that felt far too good after all that dark chaos, and he drew his knees up to rest his chin on them as the heat filtered into his limbs.

"I spent two and a half years with Ero-Sennin," Naruto sang wickedly, flashing her teeth as she silently cackled. "It's amazing how much you can pick up when you're stuck with a guy who considers peeping into women's baths 'research'."

There was a long pause, followed by a barely audible grunted "Fine...", and Naruto darted into the trees with a bright laugh.

Sakura could hear them grousing at each other in the distance, though he didn't pay attention to what they were saying after Naruto's initial whining complaint at how Sasuke's boobs were bigger than hers. To be honest, he felt rather content where he was, knowing the girls wouldn't get into too much trouble on their own. He snickered at the image of the pair struggling to get the bra on Sasuke, and as absurd as it was he allowed himself that brief time to let the heat settle into his belly as he hugged his knees to his chest. The two of them still looked a little boyish with their short hair, so it was easier than he thought it would be to fantasize about them.

It never once occurred to him that indulging in the wayward fantasy would turn out to be a very serious problem. He had done it countless times before without any consequences. So, it was a huge surprise to him that unwinding himself and standing up as he heard Naruto and Sasuke approach was uncomfortably difficult. He had to hunch over a bit, whirling on his feet so his back was to them as an aching hardness pressed and zinged and pulled between his legs with every move he made.

The heat wasn't fading off and leaving him in peace like it normally would, it was heavy and insistent and _needy_, resting and throbbing in the crook of his thigh like a second heart that was screaming to be touched. Brushing the dust off his skirt to try to appear normal while also giving him an excuse to carefully make sure he wasn't showing, he tried to focus on getting rid of the embarrassing erection. Except he wasn't used to how sensitive his new body could be down there, and he swallowed a gasp as his fingers skated over the alien stiffness that felt so fucking good and painful and horribly HORRIBLY WRONG in all the right ways it made him shiver and jump into a quick uneven marching pace.

"Sakura-chan? Where are you...hey, wait!" Naruto called, scurrying to catch up to him.

"We can't stay here," Sakura said briskly, hunching his shoulders and trying to think of things that would erase his lust. "We need to make it to a secure location so we can figure out what we're going to do."

"What, you mean that safe house on the border?" Naruto asked. "I can get us there in a snap, just hold on-"

"No!" Sakura gasped, jerking away from the feel of Naruto's arm circling his waist, his dick twitching and WANTING as his fingers fisted into the material of the orange and brown jacket that smelled like what he could have had his arms wrapped around and maybe tilted his hips just a bit to sneak in a little grind against soft flesh. "Please, don't touch me," he whispered, hobbling down the path and swallowing the urge to vomit. He had turned into the disgusting creepy pervert he had always ALWAYS LOATHED!

"Sakura-chan...?"

Suddenly Sasuke was in front of him, staring him down with those fathomless black eyes and reaching out to trace her fingers over his forehead. Sakura wanted to kiss her, _devour_ her, take those delicate fingers into her mouth and nibble on them.

"Get away from me!" He snarled, tossing his head back out of reach and side-stepping to try to get around the sharp searching gaze of the brunette.

It suddenly occurred to him that both Sasuke and Naruto were now slightly shorter than he was, and if either of them straddled his lap they'd be eye-to-eye. The thought sent jolts of electricity down his spine and into his groin.

"Naruto," Sasuke said in soft command, never taking her eyes off Sakura.

"Gotcha!" Naruto said triumphantly as a body hit Sakura's back to wind arms around his chest, and before the world tipped on it's side in a flash of golden light, Sasuke was looping her arms around his neck and _pressing_ herself against him.

The safe house materialized in Sakura's peripheral vision, but he wasn't paying attention to it because he was too busy scrabbling and scratching at the back of Sasuke's shirt while a pressure that had been building and building in his gut finally released in a blaze of electric heat and clenching muscle. He trembled and coughed, feeling unbelievably drained and repulsively mortified. He wanted to break down into tears and crawl into a hole to die. He wanted to bash his own head in with a rock. _He wanted to stomp Naruto and Sasuke's asses into the fucking dirt for trapping him like that!_

"The first time is weird and sudden and confusing, Sakura-chan," Naruto said quietly, her breath warm against the back of his neck and her lithe body snuggled into the curve of his spine. Sakura couldn't even come up with words to describe his self-disgust and humiliation, and every shred of his pride was screaming at him to push them both away even as he gripped Sasuke tighter. "But it happens when boys are young and silly, and we don't know why it happened, only that it happened. Then we get used to it, and we learn how everything works, and we figure out all the goofy little secrets to living with this crazy person in our pants that makes our brains stop working right. It's okay if you don't know all the secrets, Sakura-chan. I'll teach them to you, so don't worry about anything, okay?"

"Those pills you gave us were to keep us from getting pregnant, weren't they," Sasuke said, her body neither leaning in to accept Sakura's embrace, nor leaning back to escape it.

"You don't know the jutsu to make your womb reject all foreign proteins," Sakura replied, shaking his head as his voice cracked and his eyes stung with tears he refused to shed. "You don't know the trick to manipulating your chakra internally so you can protect yourself if you've been bound with chakra-suppressing shackles. You haven't been given the temporary hormone seal that leaves you infertile for six months. You aren't protected by the walls of Konoha out here!"

"How long does the pill last?" Naruto asked.

"Four weeks."

"Will it make my dick shrivel up if I turn back into a guy tomorrow?"

"No," Sakura laughed, releasing Sasuke and elbowing Naruto in the ribs. "Your fertility will go down significantly, but it won't affect your libido."

"So it's all good, then," Naruto shrugged, lacing her fingers behind her head and shifting her weight onto one leg in a clear invitation for him to follow Sasuke into the small cabin.

Sakura refused to let his eyes linger on the absolute perfection of Naruto's hips as he was again given a peek of that smooth tanned skin. Fucking hell, he would _kill_ to have those fine-boned sensuously athletic curves that let Naruto walk around in boxer shorts and boys trousers hugging her figure with lazy defiance below her navel.

"You're not coming?" Sakura asked after a few steps, when Naruto made no move to join him.

"Nah, I'll stay out here and do a perimeter check."

"...you're in Sennin Mode..." he drawled pointedly, crossing his arms over his chest and trying to shake off the still-weird feeling of not having breasts.

"Yeah, well, I thought you might want some...you know...privacy and stuff after the thing with..." she mumbled, darting her eyes to the cabin as her cheeks bloomed pink.

"Dummy," Sakura sighed, a slight smile twitching at his lips as he stepped back and gripped Naruto's ear to drag her inside.

"I lit the fire for the water heater," Sasuke said neutrally, not glancing over her shoulder at their entrance as she worked on opening the windows in the squat one-room house. "It should be ready by now."

Sakura felt his face heat up in embarrassment, the damp sticky feeling in his shorts suddenly becoming the most unwelcome sensation he'd ever experienced. He scratched at his forearm after slipping his backpack off his shoulder, wanting to say something about how the water technically should have taken an hour to heat up, but Sasuke didn't appear to want to hear any thanks for obviously speeding that process up. Gripping the strap to his backpack, he walked to the linen closet to search through the sparse contents for a towel and tried not to think about the fact that he was wearing his spare clothes because the others had been ruined on the mission.

"I'll air out the futons and blankets," Naruto said, reaching past Sakura to yank the whole pile down from the top shelf so it tumbled to the floor.

"Idiot, stop making a mess," Sasuke scolded with condescending irritation.

"Suck it, jerk, I'm taking it all outside anyway," Naruto retorted, scooping up the bundle and stomping her way to the door.

Sakura bit his lip and stared at the corner of brightly colored fabric poking out from beneath the towel he'd been reaching for. He didn't know why Naruto had chosen to be so discreet and secretive about slipping him her spare boxers, because it was going to be glaringly obvious when he stepped out of the washroom wearing them, but the gesture made his chest ache and burn and twist like a fist under his sternum. Quickly folding the towel around the boxers to hide them, he closed the closet door and walked into the washroom. He felt Sasuke's presence trudging up behind him before he shut the door, and turned to give her a bewildered questioning look.

"Here," she said stiffly, practically shoving her 'man-skirt' into Sakura's arms. "I'm going to go collect food for dinner, and I don't want my appetite ruined by being forced to watch Naruto run around in his boxers because he insisted on giving you his trousers while your clothes dry."

The door was briskly shut in Sakura's face before he could reply, and all he could think about was the delicate flush of color on Sasuke's cheeks as she scowled fiercely without meeting his eyes. The aching burn in his chest curled down into his belly, and he swiftly dropped everything he was carrying so he could tear his clothes off and jump into a rain of freezing cold water. Apparently books didn't lie about that little trick, and after a long few moments of hopping about and fighting back the urge to screech, he tossed his soiled clothes on the tile floor to soak before turning the warm water on for a proper shower.

Sakura opted to unpin the front of the...seriously, there had to be a better name than 'man-skirt'. At any rate, he wrapped it around his waist and let it drape down in front to cover his legs and bright orange boxers peppered with small brown toads and swirly yellow suns. Sakura paused as he zipped the borrowed jacket up to his collarbone, looking down at himself and giving into a bout of absurd mirth. It seemed so impossible that the outfit really wasn't that bad.

Since he had adjusted the length of cloth tight around his waist instead of flared out like Sasuke wore it, keeping it in place with his belt and letting the bottom of Naruto's jacket cover it, it nearly looked like he was wearing a yukata beneath the jacket. Slinging the towel over the back of his neck and giving his washed clothes one final wring in the sink, he hesitated as he gripped the door handle. The cold knife of humiliation was still buried in his stomach, but the sting was easing.

Sasuke and Naruto had gone to great lengths in order to help make that happen, and there was far too much he needed to be concerned about without wallowing and dwelling on that mortifying moment of wretched weakness. The situation was unprecedented, he had to keep his head together and ensure the safety of HIS team. He couldn't keep letting them take care of him like they were doing, even if their clumsy barbed teamwork was as close to a display of real camaraderie as he had ever seen between them.

His chakra reserves weren't up to par, but at least they weren't dreadfully low. He definitely needed to give both girls a thorough examination to make certain there wasn't any kind of serious internal damage from the effects of the 'transformation'. They were a day from Konoha, and weren't technically due back for another two days since their mission had been explosively messy in the swamps, but quicker than anticipated. It wasn't out of the realm of options to take their time getting back home, so they had two days to figure things out before Tsunade started getting twitchy about their absence. Squaring his shoulders, he opened the door and stepped out into the main room.

"Ha! I win!" Naruto sang with a cocky grin, sitting cross-legged on the floor with a cutting board on her lap as she diced up wild mushrooms and herbs before dumping them into a wide stone bowl.

"You're deluded," Sasuke grunted, tossing the blonde a withering look from where she was searing a pair of cleaned and dressed rabbits over the flames in the fireplace.

"Whatever, you jealous bastard," Naruto scoffed pleasantly. "I told you Sakura-chan would rock the hell out of your creepy 'man-skirt', and I was right. Therefore I win, and you lose-ow!"

"This is not a fashion show, play nice," Sakura said firmly, rapping his knuckles on the top of Naruto's head as he walked by to hang his clothes out the window. The sun was still high, and having the garments out of sight was much more comfortable for him than putting them on display over the mantle.

The rest of the afternoon went relatively smoothly, with Sakura playing referee to Naruto's endless well of banter as he helped cut up the rest of the vegetables for their rabbit stew. He kept the medical exams as brief as possible, focusing on the health of their internal organs rather than going all out with a complete physical. The fact that both of them were in perfect health for two young women was an unsettling relief. Naruto said Kurama wouldn't be able to tell if they'd be stuck like that forever until the nature chakra still rattling around in their systems tapered off.

It wasn't until later that evening that it finally got to that point, and it was a sickeningly frightful moment.

Naruto was teasing Sasuke, threatening to drag her futon over next to the brunette's because she looked like 'a nervous schoolgirl' sitting in the corner all by herself. Sasuke, of course, counter-threatened to decapitate Naruto if she tried it. Sakura was just getting to his feet to grab the back of Naruto's shirt as she practically skipped toward her futon so she could move it when she simply collapsed. It was so completely sudden and unexpected and _scary_ the way she had been snickering energetically one second, and the next she was folding in on herself and crumpling to the floor in a jumble of lifeless limbs as if she was a puppet that had just gotten her strings cut.

Sakura was next to her in a heartbeat, years of training kicking in as he searched for a pulse under ashen skin that was already covered in a sheen of sweat. Barking out orders to Sasuke as he found that thundering and dangerously racing pulse, he quickly carried her to the futon and hovered his hands over her chest to try to find the source behind why she was wheezing in air with desperate heaving gulps while her chakra bottomed out. Her eyes were unfocused, staring blankly ahead with her lids resting heavily over the glassy blue irises.

They were _blue_.

"Naruto, listen to me," Sakura ordered crisply, shifting his chakra from searching for an injury to rushing it into Naruto's system. "You have to stay awake for me, you got that? You have to tell me why you're crashing so hard after releasing your Sennin Mode. Come on, you have to tell me, now stay awake!" It was a stupid request, and he had a very good idea why this was happening, but he also needed Naruto to stay the hell awake until he could get her stable.

"...long..." Naruto slurred between gasping breaths that were starting to quicken and shallow in hyperventilation, her gaze drifting vaguely in the direction of Sakura's voice as she blinked lethargically.

"I can't hear you, say it again," Sakura said firmly, straining and concentrating on repairing the damage Naruto's way-too-fast heart was doing to her own body. He was fully aware that the kyuubi wouldn't let Naruto die, but that didn't mean he had to sit there and watch her suffer.

"...s'too...long..." Naruto coughed, drawing her brows together and blinking again as she tried to focus. "...balance..."

"He said it's because he's an idiot," Sasuke said, and Sakura could hear the smirk in her voice without needing to turn and look at the young woman standing behind him. "He said it's because he's a coward." Sasuke paused again, and Sakura saw the shadow on the wall tilt its head slightly. "He said it's because he's a girl now, and he didn't have the balls to admit he was this weak."

Sakura felt his eye twitch at the last statement, but he kept his attention on dumping chakra into her system, stimulating pressure points, soothing wildly firing nerves, and trying to prompt Naruto's body into helping him counteract the frenzied mess it was in.

"...Sakura...chan'll...kick...yer'ass..." Naruto rasped with a weak grin.

There was another significant pause.

"Did you say something?" Sasuke asked in a haughty feminine mockery of Kakashi's lazy drawl.

"...fucker...shuddup..." Naruto said, rolling her eyes wearily. "...stupid flower...forced Sennin on me...couldn't stop nature chakra from...coming in, and was in it too long...burned up Kurama's chakra to keep the balance..." Swallowing dryly as her breathing finally started to even out, she tilted another grin. "...he's pissed...says he's gonna sleep for the next 50 years, and we can all kiss his ass...but he says the nature chakra is filtering out without doing some crazy long-worded shit...and we'll change back in a day or two when our chakra systems turn the tables." She narrowed her eyes up at Sasuke. "Did you hear it that time, dickhead?"

Sasuke grunted in what Sakura had learned to interpret as smug amusement, and set down the items he'd told her to get before walking back to her futon. Sakura just sighed and exchanged a sad knowing smile with Naruto, fisting water from the cloth in the bowl and draping it over her damp forehead with one hand so he could continue to work on calming Naruto's heart rate and replenishing his chakra with the other hand. It took another hour before he was satisfied, and Naruto was already asleep.

Digging into his medical supplies, he mixed a hearty restorative concoction together and slid his arm under Naruto's shoulders to gently wake her and lift her up so she could drink the glass of medicine. She felt so tiny and fragile, half leaning against his chest as she cupped her trembling hands over his own to guide him on how much she could swallow at a time. Sakura had been there at the worst of times, when Naruto had been at her weakest, unconscious, collapsing in exhaustion and pain, _dying_, but never in all those moments had he ever once thought of her as fragile or tiny.

She was bigger than life, even in death. It made him want to just hold her and cradle her, protect her and hide her until she turned back into the loud, annoying, boisterous, huge-as-the-universe, smiling and laughing _force_ he had grown so accustomed to. It hit him all at once as he gave Naruto a glass of water to wash down the grimacing complaints at how much he was torturing her with his foul 'medicine'; the crushing flood of relief at knowing all of this upside-down backwardness would come to an end in just a few days. It sat him back on his heels after he'd settled Naruto back to bed, and he gave himself a brief moment to hug himself tight and simply shiver with the crash of emotions.

Shaking himself out of his reverie, he brushed his fingers over Naruto's forehead to check her temperature. She had a mild fever, and knowing the blonde it would be long gone by morning along with most of the draining effects from chakra depletion. Still, the circumstances were out of his realm of knowledge, and he didn't want to take chances after hearing that even Kurama was exhausted. So, he dragged his futon next to Naruto's as quietly as he could before giving Sasuke's shadowed sleeping form a wry smile and turning out the lantern.

Habit and nerves woke him up every hour to reach out and hover his dimly glowing hand over Naruto's chest to check on her, change the damp cloth on her forehead, and smooth her short hair back as he monitored her fever. When her fever finally broke sometime in the middle of the night, and her chakra reserves were making a steady comeback on their own, he set the wet cloth aside and allowed himself to sink into a deep sleep.

He was pulled reluctantly from that slumber by the whispered argument across the room behind him. Resisting the urge to groan and chuck a pillow at his teammates, he blinked lazily at the wall and listened to them for a minute.

"It's inhumane leaving her like that," Naruto hissed angrily. "We're going to have to help her with this!"

"No, we aren't," Sasuke growled softly.

"Yes we are, damn it! Why are you trying to act like a prudish snob after what you did yesterday?!"

"That was a completely different situation," Sasuke snapped quietly. "And even if it does happen – which I highly doubt – all she has to do is leave it alone and it'll go away in a minute. Now shut the hell up and stop creating problems where there aren't any."

"...you've never had an honest-to-god REAL hard-on in the morning, have you?" Naruto breathed, her voice sounding almost tragically awed. "Tell me you 'recreate' on a regular basis-"

"This conversation ends now..." Sasuke interrupted menacingly.

Sakura felt the seals on his palms tingle, and the mental association that sensation had with the particular topic under discussion made him horrifyingly aware of his unwanted and insistent erection. He was instantly thankful that whatever sick twisted god that had brought the calamity on him had left him sleeping on his side instead of his back.

"Sasuke, you're _eighteen_, this is not normal!" Naruto said with concerned persistence, her voice raising in a pitch that was on the verge of desperate.

_"You_ are the only abnormal one here!"

"Enough," Sakura grated loudly, hunching his shoulders and wishing he could just burrow under the covers and pretend nothing had ever gone wrong in that damn forest. "Just..." He bit back his embarrassment and took a deep breath as he propped himself on his elbow and glared over his shoulder. The movement shifted the tented material of his boxers over that throbbing mass of insanity, bringing even more heat to his cheeks, but he clenched his teeth and glowered at the pair of warily attentive girls. "Tell me how to make it go away." Naruto opened her mouth with a perplexed expression. _"Without_ doing that," Sakura said darkly.

"Think of something disgusting. Like him," Sasuke shrugged, jerking her thumb in Naruto's direction.

"Wait...you think about me when you get hard...?" Naruto blinked, looking at Sasuke with a strange mixture of dazed shock and somewhat suspicious assessment.

"To get RID OF IT!" Sasuke snarled, her face catching fire as her eyes whirled an enraged red.

"BOTH OF YOU SHUT THE FUCK UP AND GO OUTSIDE!" Sakura bellowed, digging his nails into his wildly buzzing palms. "Opposite sides of the house! Naruto, you're grounded for an hour."

"But-"

"There will be _one hour_ of silence from you, and you will leave Sasuke alone during that time or so help me I will _end_ you," Sakura said lowly, giving the blonde a black look.

Naruto demurred with a sigh, walking out the front door while Sasuke slid gracefully through the window. As soon as they were both out of sight he covered his head with his pillow and howled in frustration, because the gruesome images of twisted bodies on the operating table, or the thought of witnessing a parade of wrinkly naked tottering old men was not wilting the rock-hard muscle between his legs. That little flare of heat he'd coasted awake on had been replaced with a chilly gross feeling due to his thoughts...but DAMN IT, WHY THE HELL WAS HE STILL HARD?!

He didn't want to be hard! He felt no arousal coiling in his belly at all anymore! As a matter of fact, the heavy aching stiffness was starting to feel more insistent and less pleasant... Lifting up the blanket, he looked down at the unfazed 'crazy person' in his pants and started to get worried. If his erection was so engorged that it couldn't be 'talked down', then he needed to switch gears and give himself a release before he ended up in severe pain. He was a medic. He understood the physical workings and ramifications of male genitals, he just didn't know how to deal with the unholy randomness of that shit while it was attached to him!

Flicking his senses out, he found Sasuke's roiling chakra perched in the trees out of sight of the cabin, but she was within shouting distance. As he pushed himself awkwardly to his feet he rolled his eyes at Naruto's agitated presence huddled right outside the front door. What was that idiot doing?! Waiting for him to call her in and ask her to help jack him off?! The angry idea of Naruto's nimble fingers wrapped around his shaft sent a shiver down his spine, and he doubled over to fumble clumsily at his thighs in an attempt to avoid the instinct to grab himself before he reached the washroom. Well, at least the heat was back, pooling in his belly and threading outwards to skip his heart into a faster pace.

Sakura slammed the door shut behind him, grimacing with a touch of guilt at the responding spike of chakra skittering across his palms. He slumped down to the floor, sprawling his legs out and gaping wide-eyed at the black patterns on his hands. Oh god...he was about to masturbate with hands that were actively connected to the chakra bands on Sasuke's wrists. His dick twitched in anticipation, and he shuddered at the startling sensation. No, this was so not happening! Not when there was a chance that his chakra would get erratic enough for Sasuke to feel the resonation! His sack tightened and that magnificently torturous ache was back.

"Naruto!" Sakura barked loudly.

"Yeah?" Naruto's voice responded almost instantly above his head on the other side of the door.

"What the hell are you DOING?!" Sakura railed, curling forward in surprise and shooting a withering suspicious glare over his shoulder. "Don't just 'Yeah?' like you've been creeping outside the door the whole time!"

"I wasn't!" Naruto insisted, her voice backing up a few paces.

"Argh, never mind! You're un-grounded, go spar with Sasuke until I call you both back into the house."

"Sakura-chan, I don't think he's really in the mood for-"

"Then get him in the mood!" He snapped. "Tell him it was an order from me, yell at him until he cracks, flirt with him, throw rocks at him, I don't care! Just make it happen now!"

Naruto gave a yelp of understanding before Sakura heard her scamper out the window. Taking a breath, he tentatively reached down and peeled the front flap of his boxers open so the material collapsed around the swollen and reddened muscle jutting out from his lap like an alien creature...or some kind of malignant growth. He eyed it with wary amazement, rubbing his arms as his palms tingled with Sasuke's rising temper. It was so much bigger than before, and there was something almost hilarious about the way it was just standing up all pert and proud. He suddenly felt like the dumbest pervert on the face of the planet.

Groaning out a sigh and hoping the chaotic jangling from the seals on his palms would be enough to mask what he was about to do, he bit his lip and slowly stretched his hands down to encircle his erection as if he was trying to trap an animal. Then he squeezed his eyes shut and carefully grasped it with both hands. Lightning fizzled down his spine and flashed behind his eyes as his hips bucked up, choking out a gurgling cry AS HE FELT THE FUCKING SEALS THRUMMING AGAINST HIS GOD DAMN COCK!

He couldn't breathe, he couldn't think, he couldn't figure out why he hadn't even considered this particular issue, and he couldn't process the nagging notion that he should probably let the hell go because he literally felt the earth tremble as Sasuke's chakra went haywire, buzzing and whispering so damn deliciously against that hot over-sensitive skin. Moisture leaked out of the tip, sliding down to pool in the curve of his thumb, and all he could do was watch it in rapt fascination as his breath came quick while the ground quaked again. Cripes, those two morons were raising a shitstorm out there.

The blazing snaking _need_ twisting in his gut spread out across his groin and down his legs, curling his toes as he blinked and steadied himself. He had to get it together and finish this thing before Naruto and Sasuke turned the surrounding land into a crater. There was another blast and a rain of dirt plinked over the roof, followed swiftly by Naruto's furious shouting and Sasuke's immediate retaliation of snapping trees farther away from the cabin. Damn it, they weren't sparring! Sasuke was just chasing Naruto around trying to beat the shit out of her, he could feel it in the uneven spikes of the seals.

Gritting his teeth, he narrowed his eyes and started pumping his hands up and down, marching after a release that felt like it was two seconds away as the pre-cum slipped and smeared under his fingers. That helped get the heat boiling closer to the surface, but using two hands was too clumsy so he slid one between his thighs to sneak up under his boxers and fondle the folds of his sack in the familiar rhythm and position he had used as a woman. Whether it was a placebo effect or he had inadvertently discovered another piece of heaven, he didn't know or care.

He was close, his ears ringing with the chaos of his nerves even as some small part of his mind noted Sasuke's chakra had sharpened and evened out to the steady calm focus she had when she was sparring or fighting. Coughing and arching back to dig his shoulders into the door as his hips thrusted up into his hands, Sakura felt his release rip and squeeze and blast out of him in a strange but fabulous way. He reflexively tried to ride it out and hold onto it, digging in and seeking more, continuing to work his hands so he could coast on the diminishing tingles where he could catch the next wave into an even higher plane.

But he was going limp and soft under his fingers, the quivering aftershocks already subsiding into a slumping pit of boneless lethargy. He sagged against the door and blinked at the wall as his hands flopped to the floor, one of them sticky and wet and...messy. He felt unaccountably cheated and disappointed. Was that really all there was to it? A flash in the pan before you're dumped down the sink? It couldn't have been more than a few minutes since he'd started, and his body was spent! THIS SUCKED!

Every fantasy he'd ever had about making love to...someone...all night long was completely ruined! Romance novels were a big fat lie! Which would explain why Kakashi was always reading them, because he could relate to all those silly, obvious, exaggerating lies! He kicked his legs petulantly for a moment, huffing his bangs out of his eyes and pouting. Pinching his lips together, he scowled down at his flaccid UNIMPRESSIVE member.

"Cock-tease!" Sakura accused wrathfully. For pity's sake, there had to be more to it than this! He just needed to figure it out...

Grumbling and pushing himself to his feet so he could clean up the evidence off the floor and stumble into the shower for a brisk scrub-down, he berated himself with several choice curses because there was not going to be any 'figuring it out'. He would change back into a woman tomorrow, and this whole episode would be left far FAR behind him. As he toweled off his hair before stomping out into the main room, he continued to try to ignore the enormous temptation of having all the secrets of how to truly please a man literally within reach and readily available.

And it wasn't in book-form or through second-hand gossip. He would never have this opportunity again.

Using a transformation jutsu to change into a man didn't have the same results since that was merely chakra manipulation to superficially modify his form. Not that Sakura would ever admit it to anyone, he had tried it once out of curiosity. Unfortunately, just like clones didn't bleed, a henge couldn't magically fabricate muscle groups to provide actual strength enhancements, nerve endings for realistic stimulation, or blood vessels to make all of it work clinically. He had been able to physically sense everything tactilely, but trying to masturbate in a henge was like trying to get off by rubbing his elbows with a pair of gloves on while balancing a glass on his head as he concentrated on his chakra to keep the transformation from dropping.

He folded his arms over the windowsill, leaning heavily against the wall and tried not to think about how Naruto and Sasuke could spar like that for hours, because that would surely give him enough time to recover and have a real go at exploring the possibilities and limitations of his body. Sighing wistfully, he shook his head and focused on watching the girls spar out across the now very open field beside the cabin. It was a strict taijutsu contest, and Sakura narrowed his eyes when he noticed Naruto was in Sennin Mode. She really shouldn't be pushing herself like that after what happened last night, but she wasn't showing any signs of being anything less than in perfect condition.

Sasuke's eyes were a sharp bloody red without her mangyeko sharingan, able to predict Naruto's moves easily. However, countering them was not so easy. Naruto was significantly faster in Sennin Mode, so she was able to keep Sasuke on her toes. She was also much tougher and stronger in terms of brute strength, which forced the brunette to maneuver nimbly out of the way or concentrate on deflecting blows while she made strategies and tried to trap Naruto with moves that would use her own strength against her.

"Come inside when you get hungry!" Sakura called after a few more minutes, walking away from the window and wrapping Sasuke's...'half-yukata'...around his waist. In his current state, Naruto's boxers and the wealth of dark draping cloth really were more comfortable than his shorts and skirt on several levels, and as long as they didn't ask for the items back he wasn't going to give up the sense of secure privacy they provided.

Crouching over the ceramic pot of rice hanging above the warm coals of last night's fire, he set the pot aside and stoked the flames back to life as Sasuke returned and walked into the washroom with a clean towel over her shoulder. Sakura wasn't paying much attention to it until it suddenly hit him that Sasuke was kind of taking a long time to turn the water on in the shower. A cold feeling of mortified horror slammed into him. Shit, he'd cleaned up everything, right?! Most of it had been on his hand, there had only been a few small splashes on the floor! HE HAD TRIPLE-CHECKED TO MAKE SURE!

He heard the muted sound of water hitting tile and slumped back onto his heels, scratching at his hair in silent frustration. Why couldn't the day just end, already?! By the time Naruto came back with six plump fish, Sasuke was just stepping out of the washroom. Sakura again busied himself with a task in front of the fireplace, focusing on skewering two of the fish and carefully roasting them so he could NOT think about the stray drops of water glistening and sliding down the curve of Sasuke's throat where that pale skin was so damn lickable.

Glowering malevolently at the dead fish he was cooking, he shifted off his knees and crossed his legs because he hadn't thought about adjusting his superfluous appendage in anticipation of the possibility of it stirring to life and getting somewhat painful in the way that it was wedged and pinched between his thighs. Seriously...SERIOUSLY, how the hell did guys function normally with this crap?! At least keeping his attention on the glassy eye of the fish was helping him maintain a sense of decorum and control. Sasuke had been right about simply needing to think of something disgusting, but the trick was not letting his idle thoughts flicker and stray back to more pleasant things.

When he placed the cooked fish on a large plate and started on the next pair, he noted that Naruto seemed to be taking a while in the shower. He shrugged and refused to let himself think about it, because that would just lead to images of water trailing down tanned skin and cascading over perfect hips he just wanted to grab and- STOP RIGHT THERE!

Fish. He needed to focus on fish. Dead fish with dead eyes staring up at nothing, and were going to become inedibly burnt if he didn't pay attention. Several controlled and calming breaths later he was back in his mental safety zone, and Naruto trundled out of the washroom with an oddly pensive look in her eyes.

The breakfast/lunch meal was quiet and unsettlingly tense. Sakura was torn. He wanted to apologize profusely for being a hormonal young man while also gripe his jealousy at them for being female, but was unable to come up with a tactful way of saying it that wouldn't make it sound like he actively disliked male bodies in general. Because he didn't! He loved male bodies! And would really love to be able to lavish a lot of attention on one in particular some day! He just didn't like _being_ a male body!

The tangled thoughts and emotions dragged him through the meal in silence, and when Naruto shook herself out of her funk to make idle conversation while they were cleaning up he was still so distracted by his own inner turmoil that he completely missed it when Naruto dropped the bomb initially.

"So..." Naruto said, taking a deep breath as she put the last plate away and turned toward Sakura with her shoulders straight and looking for all the world like she was about to go on a dangerous mission through enemy territory. "Where is it?"

"Where is what?" Sakura asked, blinking in confusion as he closed the cupboard and stole a glance at Sasuke's rigid frame as she stalked to the door and left the house. The seals on his palms only tingled slightly in reaction, so whatever was agitating the brunette was being kept severely reined in.

"My clit."


	2. Being a Chick Sucks

**[** Still no sex yet! However, there is some...er...graphic co-ed anatomical education... **]**

**Being a Chick Sucks**

_"WHAT?!"_ Sakura shrieked, his brain crashing to a halt and frantically bumbling around to figure out how in the hell the conversation he hadn't really been paying attention to had led to this.

"That's what it's called, isn't it?" Naruto asked, her previous resolve diminishing slightly as she spread her hands in exasperation. "The little magic button that turns on all the fireworks."

Sakura stumbled over an answer for a moment, most of his justified horror and wrath melting away due to the obscene adorableness of how Naruto described what a clitoris and an orgasm were. Damn it...he couldn't even correct it with proper clinical terminology because it made him feel like he was just being a vindictive bitch toward the blonde's future partners.

"You don't have to show me," Naruto said quickly, waving her hands and stepping back with an awkward smile. "You don't have to touch me or anything, just give me a clue for where to look, draw me a map, _anything!_ Nothing I do works, and I know it's because I'm stupid and clumsy and...well...male, so I'm kind of destined to be a total disappointment anyway, but being a girl really-"

"Stop," Sakura interrupted firmly, his mind tripping back into gear and zeroing in on the one statement that was making his blood boil around the cold stone in his gut. "Who told you that crap about being destined to be a disappointment, and why did you believe them?"

"I don't know who they were," Naruto replied, looking bewildered at the turn the subject had taken. "And I believed them because they all said the same thing, no matter where I was."

"I want names," he said coldly.

Naruto was a living embodiment of stubborn defiance, there was nothing she couldn't do or wouldn't put all her might into trying to accomplish. That was an absolute Law of Nature. And, by god, if there were people out there that had managed to do the impossible by convincing her that she was 'destined' to be a failure at her love life for whatever reason, then Sakura needed to know how many bodies he was going to have to hide.

"I don't know who they were!" Naruto repeated, her confusion rising into frustration. "They were just random girls talking to each other about how lousy their boyfriends were in bed when they first started going out! Why are you getting mad?!"

"Why are you getting suckered in by gossip?!" Sakura snapped.

"Because it was gossip coming from women who didn't know I could hear them!" Naruto railed, yanking at her hair. "Because they all said the _same thing_ across twelve Countries! Because I've had a raging hard-on for a solid day and a half AND I CAN'T FUCKING FIND IT ON MY OWN GOD DAMN BODY NO MATTER WHAT I DO! Chicks need to come with a set of instructions! The stupid hide-and-seek game that happens down there is bullshit, and it's no surprise at all the way you've been reacting to being a guy!" Naruto huffed with irate jealousy. "If I were you, I'd have kicked us out of the house and made us _stay_ out there till we all changed back!"

Sakura was speechless. On one hand, he was dumbfounded that Naruto was jealous of _him_ and was basically echoing most of his own frustrations back at him. On the other hand, the gauntlet had officially been thrown down and it was game on! He felt a brief spark of guilty morals and the hesitant stirrings of mortification, but they were quickly shoved aside by his pride as a former woman. He was going to make that blonde idiot weep tears of regret because her body had traded the gift of multiple orgasms in exchange for being able to write her name in the snow with pee!

Glowering at Naruto, Sakura pointed across the room. "Washroom. Now."

Naruto gave him a disgruntled challenging glare before stomping her way there and closing the door rather forcefully behind her. "Okay, now what," Naruto said with dark annoyance.

"Take your pants off and sit your ass down," Sakura bit back waspishly, resisting the petty urge to kick the door for good measure, and turned so he could sit with his back against it.

"Done," she said with a shuffling thump against the wood at Sakura's back.

"Are you completely fine with masturbating like this?"

"IF YOU'RE DOING THIS JUST TO FUCK WITH ME I'M GOING TO TEAR THE WALLS DOWN WITH MY TEETH!"

"That would be a 'yes', then," Sakura drawled, lifting a brow and tossing a somewhat incredulous look over his shoulder. Maybe Naruto hadn't been exaggerating when she'd said she had been suffering for a day and a half straight. "Scoot down a bit so you're kind of slouching back against the door, then spread your legs and bend your knees so you're comfortable." He waited till the shuffling behind him stopped. "All right, your...'little magic button' is about half the size of a pea."

"Are you serious?!" Naruto demanded angrily. "Dear god, no wonder I couldn't find it! This is the dumbest body design ever!" There was a brief pause as Sakura took a deep breath to swallow his temper. "Wait, did you just make fun of what I said before?!"

"To be brutally honest," Sakura groused, rubbing his temples. "I think the phrase 'the little magic button that turns on all the fireworks' is one of the cutest things I've ever heard, and if you use it correctly you're going to get laid a lot."

"...oh, okay then..." she mumbled, and Sakura could almost feel the door heating up. "So...next step?"

"What you're looking for is going to be at the top of your vulva." Silence. "The folds..." Sakura sighed, feeling his face start to heat up as his temper calmed down and the weirdness of the situation sank in.

"So, it's on the outside."

"No, it's...tucked underneath the top."

"On the inside?"

"No," Sakura moaned, burying his crimson face in his hands. "Follow the line from the bottom to the top, then bend your finger and gently...kind of...feel around in the folds."

"Yeah, okay, now my hand is all slimy, and all I've found is frustration," Naruto growled after a long pause.

"You truly have no shame, do you..."

"Shame can suck my nuts at this point," she quipped bitterly. "I've been hard for a day and a half without any kind of relief. It feels like it should be the size of a mountain, and it's actually half the size of a pea. I will lick the ground you walk on if you can get me to _find_ it."

"I'm trying! Okay, next plan: straddle the edge of the bathtub."

"Holy shit!" Naruto squealed. "How is being this cold part of your brilliant plan?!"

"Damn it, sorry!" Sakura apologized, biting her lip and cringing in sympathy.

"You know what?!" Naruto raged. "Fuck this shit! Fuck everything! I DON'T EVEN CARE ANYMORE! I will give you a blow job if you SHOW me where my clit is!"

Sakura flinched at the offer, the heated words bringing too-vivid images to his mind while his stupid body twitched and tightened and warmed up.

"I'm serious, here," Naruto continued, her voice right against the door and sounding painfully desperate and strained. "I've never done it before, so it probably won't be fantastic, but I know what would feel good on me and I don't think I have a gag reflex."

Sakura's dick echoed the strain, and he just wanted to cover his ears to block out the agony twisting in his chest and turning his blood to liquid fire.

"I'll be happy to go down on you, Sakura-chan, even if you're a guy!"

There was so much open truth to the statement that he had to clutch the front of his borrowed jacket and squeeze his eyes shut so he could try to breathe around the knifing pain under his sternum and the howling in his head.

"You don't even have to watch, and I won't talk!"

Sakura's eyes flew wide open in a frantic panic, knowing what was coming next and feeling it curdle his stomach as he scrabbled at the door handle. He had to stop this! He had to stop it now!

"You can pretend I'm-mmrfff!"

"Don't you ever say that shit again, Naruto," Sakura snarled, yanking on the hair at the nape of Naruto's neck as he broke the forceful kiss.

"I don't know what else to offer," Naruto said quietly, her cheeks pink and her blue eyes as clear and serious as Sakura had ever seen them, even with the blown out pupils and burning lust. It made him want to cry. "I know I'm being a whiny crazy bitch. You don't have to do this. You can walk away right now and I'll figure things out on my own. Promise."

"Say 'please', stupid," Sakura shook his head with a smile he hoped didn't look as sad as it felt, loosening his grip to rub circles over the rigid muscles of Naruto's neck.

"No. If I do that, then you'll say 'yes' because you're a nice person and you're willing to do gross things for me because I'm your friend."

"I'm insanely jealous of your figure," he replied with blunt honesty, canting his head as his smile curled into something warmer. "Every time you lift your arms and show me a peek of your hips I get hard thinking about grabbing onto them and grinding against you."

Naruto blinked, her eyes widening impossibly and her face turning scarlet. "F-fair enough," she stammered, clearing her throat and squirming a bit. "Um...please?"

"As tightly wound as you are, the first wave will probably hit you pretty quick," Sakura said, trailing the fingers of his free hand down the center of Naruto's shirt. He would admit this was weird...but it was also really hot.

"Ah, you don't have to...um...do everything, just show me where-"

"Don't hold back," Sakura interrupted, pushing Naruto's knees a little farther apart with his own as he slid his hand down to trace a lazy circle around her navel. His erection was screaming needy, and he couldn't stop thinking about how unbelievably thrilling this power-trip felt. "Sprint into it. You need to know what that first wave feels like before you can get to the others."

"Others...?" Naruto asked with dazed tension, her breath coming swift and ragged as she clutched at the material over Sakura's legs and arched her back with a strangled groan.

"Multiple orgasms aren't a myth," he grinned, leaning in and skating his teeth at Naruto's throat as his hand snaked between her legs. Fuck, he wanted to grab onto those perfect hips that were tilting up to meet him and just thrust against her, _into_ her! He indulged in the salty taste of her skin and kept his focus, letting the heat in his blood pool and spread but not overwhelm him. "It just takes finesse and determination to get there." Naruto made a delicious little noise as Sakura dragged his fingers down and then back up to make sure everything was good and moist, her thighs already trembling as she threw her head back.

"I'll provide the finesse if you provide the determination," he whispered, his lips brushing the edge of her ear as he parted her lips with two fingers and curled his middle finger up until he found that elusive little bump. Naruto bucked up into his hand with a startled gasp, her arms wrapping around his shoulders and scratching at the back of his jacket. "Don't. Hold. Back," he growled, working his finger in slow steady circles and resisting the urge to count because he knew this would be over in under a minute.

And he was right. It took no time at all before Naruto was tensing, shivering, and then pulling back to sit on her heels with a mixture of embarrassment and edgy satisfaction on her features. Sakura had to give her credit for hiding her disappointment well.

"So, ready to get down to business?" Sakura asked, tilting his head and reveling in the cocky grin pulling at his mouth.

He could do this. He could actually really do this! He was finally in command of his own body, and as much as his dick was screeching for attention, tingling up his spine and between his legs to rest heavy in his sack, he knew he was able to let it simmer in the background without it interfering. Naruto blinked at him, a flicker of a frustrated sigh twitching at her lips before she flashed her teeth in a grin that was pure unadulterated hunger. Sakura had never been so flattered in all his life.

"Yep," she snickered, reaching for Sakura's belt with eager hands.

Sakura let her unbuckle the belt and get as far as whipping aside the dark cloth to reveal the ridiculously bright boxers. Then, he grabbed her and flipped her onto her back, quickly getting between her legs and gripping those fabulous hips so he could nibble at them.

"What are you doing?!" Naruto squawked in surprise.

"The second wave is right behind the first, and it's a lot more intense," Sakura chuckled, kissing a ring around Naruto's navel until her breath was hitching quick in her throat again. "It'll release you into a madness of howling nerves and over stimulation, but you have to reach for it," he said, licking his lips and sliding his palms up her waist, wondering what it would feel like to be inside, wrapped up and thrumming, pounding and feeding the fires. Fingers brushed his hair and he locked his gaze with ravenous blue eyes that wanted him so fucking bad!

"Don't let go of that first wave when you feel it coming on," he whispered, swallowing and denying the _want_ because this was not about him. Because they were both going crazy, and he had to stay in control. Because as many lines as they had already crossed, there was still one out ahead that he was not going to approach until they were both sober again. "It'll take a little more time to get there now that you've dulled the edge a bit. Grab onto it and ride it out, push into it until you can't take it anymore."

"It's that good, huh?" Naruto snerked, arching an eyebrow in playful suspicion.

"Magnificent torture," Sakura smirked, slipping his arm under one of Naruto's legs to hook it over his shoulder as his other hand found its way back to where it needed to be so easily.

"I'm starting to see why girls are so violent and mean," she gasped with a laugh, arching back and scratching at the floor.

"Keep it up and I won't show you how to get to the third wave," he teased, leaning forward to slide his tongue up her trembling soft abs as he used the pad of his thumb this time to press a little harder and move a little faster. Not too much, just a bit more.

"How many are there?!" Naruto choked, pulling at her hair and fumbling with her other hand till she found the rim of the bathtub.

"I've only gotten to three on my own," Sakura said, finding an absurd delight in being able to talk so calmly while Naruto was coming unhinged beneath his hands. Pressing his groin into the floor did help, though. "But I'm willing to bet there are more out there that can be reached with teamwork." Another absurd notion struck him and he laughed. "Kakashi-sensei would be so proud of us."

"Bullshit," Naruto barked out a panting laugh, her hips rolling up into Sakura's fingers at the same pace as she dug her heel into the floor. "That porn-obsessed pervert would be jealous as fuck!"

"Probably," Sakura chuckled wickedly, sinking his teeth delicately into the soft flesh of Naruto's waist and sliding a finger inside, curling it as if trying to touch his finger to his thumb. The blonde bucked her hips up with a gurgling startled noise, momentarily losing her rhythm as she shuddered and writhed at the sensation. "Come on, now," Sakura said slyly, darting his tongue out at the faint red mark he'd made. "Surely you've heard of a g-spot before..."

"Oh my god, you are such a heartless bitch right now, I can't even think!" Naruto snapped waspishly, thrashing until she caught her rhythm again with sharper and more urgent thrusts.

"Thinking was never your strong point anyway," he grinned, sliding another finger in and pushing himself up to bite at her neck and pin her leg up against her chest as he sped his pace up a little.

Naruto dug her heel into his back and keened, arching up in desperation, eyes tightly shut as she clawed at the floor and half lifted her shoulders up from her grip on the bathtub. Sakura tasted his way up Naruto's throat, ruthlessly quelling his instinct to press his body forward so he could grind into her and feel her thrusting back against his demanding erection. She was so close to breaking she wasn't even making coherent sounds anymore, and he nipped her collarbone through her shirt as she flung her arm over his shoulder and fisted her hand into the back of his jacket.

He was contemplating a third finger, trying to keep his mind off the burning in his groin and the tangy-sweet-musky scent of sex and sweat that was making him salivate and curse the fact that Naruto still had her shirt on. That _he_ still had his jacket on when they could be slipping and sliding against each other, skin on skin where he could taste and feel and drown in the contact because nothing else existed in the world outside that. But then Naruto was hitching her breath wildly and tensing up, jerking and clenching around his fingers as he licked his lips and slid that third one in without slowing down his pace.

Naruto scratched her nails into his back through the jacket, choking and folding in on herself before twisting and arching back with a snarling cry as she threw her head back. Sakura didn't stop, watching her in fascination as she flexed harder into the blinding tension, shuddering and quivering and finally gasping out a sob as she squirmed out of reach. An unexpected desire to chase her hit him, and he was leaning down on one hand before he realized it, his mind flooded with images of trapping her and pinning her, tasting every inch of her skin and getting her writhing and wailing beneath him, legs wrapped around his waist and nails scratching up his back.

Sakura shivered, sitting back on his heels as his heart pounded in his chest. He tore his gaze away from Naruto's crumpled and gasping frame sprawled out on the floor on her side, shuffling back to lean against the wall. Looking down at the tent in his lap for a moment, he shrugged and pulled his boxers down over his hips. All things considered, if he started acting modest now he'd feel like a cold bastard and a guilty idiot. He took a deep breath and wrapped his hand around the throbbing shaft, idly wondering if he would break the record on his previous abysmal time.

"Hold back," Naruto said, pushing herself to her knees and crawling over to Sakura. "Wow, I'm not used to being able to move like this so soon, this is insane," she grinned, scooting Sakura's legs apart so she could settle on her knees between them and lean her hands on his thighs.

Sakura actually felt his dick twitch in his hand, liquid seeping from the tip and sliding down his fingers.

"You don't want to sprint for this one unless you're looking for a quick release," Naruto said. "You have to hold back and ride it as long as you can because there's only one wave." She canted her head and smirked, hooking her fingers on his boxers to slide them all the way off.

Sakura couldn't stop staring at her mouth.

"But the great thing is, you can build that wave up as high as you want before it crashes," she continued matter-of-factly, and Sakura couldn't remember when he'd started moving his hand slowly up and down.

He also couldn't figure out why he didn't realize he was using the same hand that had been INSIDE Naruto. It was still slick, and he shuddered at the zinging spike of heat because this was an indirect fuck.

"You don't have to chase it, you're the one driving it. If you feel it boiling up and starting to crash before you want it to, you slow down a bit and distract yourself or keep randomly changing your pace."

"Finesse and determination?" Sakura chuckled hoarsely, brushing his thumb over the head and trying to keep his eyes from rolling back.

"Yeah, but it's kind of backwards," Naruto said, biting her lip thoughtfully and drumming her fingers on Sakura's thighs.

He was trying to listen, he really was! But the phrase 'I don't think I have a gag reflex' kept running circles through his head, and he had discovered the _perfect_ amount of pressure to grip himself with.

"Girls bodies are more about finesse," she said, rolling her shoulders back and stretching her neck till it popped. She tilted a leer, licking her lips with impish glee. "Guys are all about determination."

Sakura was reaching out to tangle his fingers in Naruto's hair even before the blonde had wrapped her lips around the head of his cock. He clenched his teeth and fought every urge in his body, trembling with the effort of not gripping that short golden hair tight and shoving her face down, not thrusting his hips up all the way into that fabulous heat, not cracking under the hunger of those blue eyes that pinned him back against the wall and dared him to give in. He forced his hands to relax, winning the battle of wills even as a moan ripped out of his throat at the feel of a tongue sliding and curling against him.

Sakura was in a sea of pleasure as too much skin was stroked and caressed, gripped and plunged into undulating heat. The aching twinge and coiling snap-spring he was so used to wasn't there, as if all the nerves in his clitoris had been spread out over MILES of skin and smoothed down so they weren't jangling and clattering against each other in such a tight space. Inch by inch he was sinking farther into heaven, and it all just felt so damn good! He jolted a bit as fingers snuck in to roll his sack, tumbling things about in a way he never would have considered, and forcing him to look up at the ceiling to count the boards for a few seconds.

Then Naruto hummed for some ungodly reason, and his hips snapped up as electricity zapped down his spine to flash behind his eyes and tingle in his toes. He heard Naruto choke in surprise, and he backed off with a babbling gasp of apologies, frantically untangling his fingers from her hair and yanking at the back of her shirt to get her off of him.

"Maybe this wasn't a good idea," Sakura said, muscling in all of his focus to brush his fingers over Naruto's throat as she sat up. No damage, thank god. "I can finish from here."

"On your knees," Naruto replied, shaking her head.

"What?"

"Get on your knees," she insisted breezily, slapping the sides of Sakura's thighs as if he hadn't just tried to shove his dick all the way down her throat. "That's what I was thinking about just now because I can't really get my hand between your legs comfortably. I should have made that noise on the way up instead of on the way down."

Sakura hesitated, his eyes straying from the glossy shine Naruto was licking off her lips down to his 'partner'.

"Come on, don't puss out on me now," Naruto antagonized with a fox-like grin, slinking forward and nipping at the side of Sakura's neck. "I'm giving you pearls of wisdom, here. Your future boyfriend will be eating out of your hand."

"That's why you're doing this?" Sakura asked, tilting his chin and offering his neck to the blonde's ministrations as he tried not to think about the fact that neither of them had pants on and he was rock hard.

"I'm doing it because I _want_ to do it, but that doesn't mean you won't be getting anything out of it," she murmured against his ear, making him shiver and shift his legs so he could get on his knees.

It seemed a little unfair that she was using his own trick against him, but, then again, he wasn't going to complain and Naruto had always been quick to adapt to situations when she found something that worked. Sitting back on his heels, he was kind of at a loss as to what to do with his hands. As much as he wanted to do it, grabbing Naruto's hair didn't seem like such a good idea anymore. He looked down at his palms right as Naruto ducked forward to swallow half of him up, and hunched over in a torrential mixture of pleasure and panic.

HE'D FORGOTTEN ABOUT THE FUCKING SEALS!

Sasuke had to know what was going on, even without the erratic feedback she would have gotten – was continuing to get RIGHT THAT SECOND – because Naruto had been howling her frustration at the top of her lungs. He shuddered and choked out a moan as Naruto started humming, fighting his hips back down so he remained sitting on his heels. He was horrified, guilty, and so mortifyingly turned on by the idea of Sasuke participating in this moment of madness, however indirectly. He wanted to lick the black markings on his palms and wind chakra into them so he could call Sasuke in, letting her know that he knew she knew.

It was all getting to be too much for him, and Sakura couldn't concentrate or think about anything anymore with a mouth swallowing him down impossibly, vibrating against his skin and dancing her tongue in lewd ways. He wanted to grab Naruto's hips and thrust into her mouth, chasing the release he'd been wallowing in and ignoring and WANTING so bad for so long now. And it was so hard keeping his hips from bucking forward when she got her nimble fingers farther between his legs.

Everything was so different and the same, and it all felt so good tightening in his groin and flooding his veins. The only thing missing was a way to satisfy the whining screech of wanting to feel something inside him, something he could wrap around and roll his hips into to make the heat turn up to another level. He was so close, and he was okay with that. He'd waited long enough, and he honestly had no idea how long they'd been going at each other. Gasping and licking his lips, he darted his tongue out to his palms and then slid his hands down Naruto's lower back so he could grasp her hips and let his fingers press into her cheeks.

Whether his hands were buzzing because of Sasuke's chakra or because he was losing his mind, Sakura didn't know or care. The roaring in his ears heightened to an incomprehensible degree when he felt a slick finger press gently at his entrance. Reflexively he spread his legs farther and pushed back, desperate to have some kind of penetration when he went over the edge. It was a bit tighter than he was used to, definitely different, but still the same and so SO GOOD! Just what he wanted – _NEEDED_ – as he felt the world starting to crash around him.

Digging his fingers into Naruto's soft – _delicious_ – flesh, he tried to push her back and get words of warning out around the quivering of his thighs and rattling of his thoughts. But that finger was thrusting faster, deeper, just how he liked it, and her other hand was latched onto his ass as she buried her face in his groin. He could feel her nose poking him in the crook of his pelvis, and then the world went white as every muscle in his body clenched up to blast lightning and fire from the tips of his fingers and toes to the top of his head, all the way down his spine and out between his legs.

Sakura sagged back and let his legs sprawl out from beneath him, boneless and blinking the room back into focus as he sucked in air and swallowed to moisten his dry throat. It felt a little rough. He must have shouted or screamed or something. Naruto straightened up and stretched her shoulders, looking as smug as a cat as she thumbed the sides of her mouth to clean up some of the mess that had gotten away from her. Her hair was wildly askew, mussed up even beyond the normal state of prickly chaos, and the faint marks on her throat were a darker contrast to her tanned skin.

Sakura managed to convince one arm to move, and grabbed the back of Naruto's neck to haul her in for a tired and brief kiss. He could taste himself on her lips. He didn't mind.

"Shower," he rasped, letting his arm fall back down. "You first. You look like I mauled you behind the refrigerator."

"Not gonna join me?" Naruto asked with a cheeky grin.

"I'm lucky there are actual sentences coming out of my mouth," Sakura quipped wryly. "I'll shower when I can feel my legs again."

Naruto gave him a sympathetic knowing smile and stepped to the shower so she could turn on the water to let it warm up. It suddenly occurred to Sakura that there was no shower curtain, and he was going to be stuck sitting there on the floor watching Naruto strip down and bathe. With lots of steam and foamy soap. Hopefully. He groaned and toppled to his side, covering his head with his lifeless arms and waving Naruto off when she asked if there was something wrong. Maybe he could take a little nap if he closed his eyes. Well...if he could get himself to stop peeking, at any rate...

Surprisingly enough, Sakura discovered that he actually had managed to doze off at some point. He recalled closing his eyes and forcing his brain to run through math equations when Naruto started soaping up her legs, and suddenly he found himself blinking at an empty shower with Sasuke's half-yukata draped over him like a blanket. The door was ajar, and the air was freshly cool. Yawning and pushing himself to his feet, he closed the door quietly and walked to the shower. The tiles were cold under his fingers as he turned on the water, so he figured he must have dropped off for maybe an hour. After having a lousy night's sleep, the short nap left him feeling greatly refreshed.

When he walked back out into the main room, Naruto was sitting in front of the fireplace watching a stew of fish and wild vegetables slowly bubble as the rice pot steamed on the floor next to her. Sakura scrubbed his hair with his towel and draped it over the windowsill before strolling over and leaning down to peer into the wide stone bowl, not that he was really in any position to judge Naruto's cooking. Between the three of them Sasuke was the chef with the discerning palate, and Naruto came in a close second with his randomly thrown together – yet highly satisfying – meals.

Sakura was quite aware of the unpalatable nature of his own cooking, but he also knew exactly what kinds of ingredients to use for any given situation to keep his teammates in the best of health. He tried to come up with recipes that wouldn't bring on an immediate round of choking and gagging, but by the time they let him cook they were usually so exhausted that he didn't have any choice but to serve them seriously needed medicinal soup instead of the tamer recipes he'd been hoping to try. Casting a sidelong glance at the blonde, he noted that she was staring at the meal with a distinct lack of enthusiasm.

He sank down so he was sitting behind her, his shoulder at her back while he looked out the window at the sunlit field and the forest beyond it. Sasuke was in the fourth tree to the left, completely hidden within the branches while her chakra still simmered with the same rigid control she'd had when she had left the cabin. Naruto had to have gone out to collect food, and the two hadn't fought because Sakura would have felt it. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, swallowing the icy knot of guilt as he looped his arm around Naruto's waist and pulled her in to lean back against his shoulder.

"He kept running away," Naruto said softly, drawing her knees up and hugging herself around Sakura's arm. "He wouldn't even let me get close enough to try to explain without having to shout, and I didn't want to make a lot of noise because you were asleep."

"I'll try to talk to him," Sakura sighed. "This entire situation is just..." He trailed off and shook his head, a sad quiet laugh lifting his shoulders. "To be honest, it's probably his worst nightmare. He doesn't deal with emotional upheaval well, you know that."

"He's still so far away. I hate it." Naruto whispered, her voice barely audible as she dug her fingers into Sakura's arm and curled in tighter.

"I know. I hate it, too," he said gently, tightening his grip on Naruto's waist and leaning his cheek against her soft hair. "Come on," he said after a few moments, giving her a little squeeze and lightly ruffling her hair. "Don't let the estrogen win."

"Being a girl sucks!" Naruto sniffed peevishly, unlatching herself from Sakura's arm and flopping her legs to the floor in a graceless tangle.

"Yeah, well, being a guy sucks, too," Sakura said with droll humor, pushing himself to his feet and giving Naruto's bangs a friendly tug when she glowered up at him. "I think we all deserve a party when we get back home for surviving this mess."

"We can have it at my apartment," she nodded, straightening her shoulders as her gaze strayed to the window and unfocused with a myriad of ideas. "It's a little bigger than Sasuke's, and you haven't found an apartment you like yet." She paused thoughtfully, a devilish grin spreading across her face. "Yeah, definitely my place. Besides, Kiba and Shino owe me a favor."

"Right..." Sakura replied, giving the blonde a look of skeptic trepidation before shaking his head as he walked to the front door. He did not want to know what Kiba and Shino had to do with having a small get-together for Team 7's original members. Seriously. Did. Not. Want. To. Know. "I'll be back in a little while. Make sure dinner doesn't burn while you devise your evil plans," he said, stepping out into the early afternoon sunshine and shutting the door behind him.

Taking a deep breath, he made his way across the open field and grimaced at all the damage. It looked like a tornado had come through...with lots of explosives attached to it... Well, at least there wouldn't be a shortage of firewood for quite a while. Judging from the fairly worn state of the linens, and the fact that the stored rice and medical supplies were getting low, Sakura suspected the safe house was due for refurbishing next month anyway. Whoever was going to get stuck with the task was certainly going to have their work cut out for them with cleaning up the landscape.

As he neared the upright trees, he felt a twitch at his palms and a pair of unseen eyes glaring waspishly at him. Having no intention of chasing the Uchiha all over the place, Sakura clenched his fists and sent a bolt of chakra through the seals to make that point clear. Sasuke lashed back venomously, making her own point clear that she was in no mood to chat. Sakura sighed and continued walking at a leisurely pace, resisting the urge to massage his palms at the buzzing anger of Sasuke's chakra.

Hopping up into the trees, he skipped over a few branches till he reached the one Sasuke was sitting on. He did nothing more than give the brunette leaning back against the tree trunk and glowering into the forest a brief glance of acknowledgement before he settled down and let his legs dangle and swing idly in the air. The position had a surprisingly good view of the cabin through a break in the leaves, and he could see Naruto moving around in the house. He could also catch a whiff of her stew whenever the wind picked up as the minutes ticked slowly by.

"Well?" Sasuke asked snidely, finally breaking the silence.

"Well what?" Sakura responded neutrally, continuing to watch the cabin.

Sasuke snorted in contempt, leveling her sharp gaze at Sakura.

"I didn't come out here to drag you back into the house," Sakura said, feeling his temper nip at the back of his mind as he met those dark eyes without flinching. "I suppose I wanted to try to give you some kind of explanation at first, but I doubt you want to hear it and I honestly can't come up with a good way to even explain it," he shrugged, turning his attention back to the cabin where Naruto was sulking on her elbows at the window. "So, I figured you'd appreciate it if I just sat out here pretending to convince you that even though things are definitely _not_ fine and dandy and normal and perfectly wonderful, that it's also not nearly as horrific as you think it is. Because if I didn't sit here pretending to do that, then Naruto would be standing in the middle of that field shouting at the top of his lungs to get you to come back inside."

"Dinner will be ready in ten minutes!" Naruto called impatiently and stepped away from the window. Then returned a few seconds later and slapped her palms on the sill to half lean outside. "WE DIDN'T HAVE SEX, SO STOP POUTING!"

"I really am going to have to kill him one of these days," Sakura groaned, massaging his temples.

"Not if I get to him first," Sasuke growled.

"It's such a sad twisted joke," Sakura chuckled, letting his hands flop over his knees. "Everyone kind of assumes that Kakashi-sensei and I are the glue that's holding this broken team together, but we're not. We're just there to try to pick up the pieces or keep them from falling too far. Naruto is the glue." He paused, watching as the blonde retreated angrily back into the cabin. "Well, more accurately he's the murky primordial tar pit that none of us can free ourselves from."

"At least not without chewing off a limb or two..." Sasuke said wryly.

"I'd say the chances of escape are highly questionable even then," Sakura laughed and grinned at the brunette, something inside him overjoyed and singing at the current of humor in Sasuke's tone. "It's not a bad way to go, though. He's as clingy as a barnacle, but he'll risk everything for you and life is never dull when he's around. Try not to make him worry too much longer, okay? My threats have a time limit against his determination, and he won't stay quiet or inside forever," she said, then dropped down to the ground.

"What the hell has he got to be worried about out here?" Sasuke scoffed.

"He's worried about _you_, Sasuke-kun," he replied, tilting his head up to scowl at what he could see of the young woman. "The more you run away from him, the more terrified he gets that he'll lose you forever, and he'll fight tooth and nail to keep you within reach. He's happiest when you're stepping forward instead of turning away, even if it's just to fight back against him because he pisses you off so much. You should know that by now."

"You sound like Kakashi," she said derisively.

"Probably because I just quoted him," Sakura retorted, tilting a smirk.

"He's sending you to do his lecturing now? His lazy attitude knows no bounds."

"Would you have listened to it before today?" Silence was the only response, and Sakura turned on his heel to start walking away with a hint of a smug smile. "That was from a conversation I had with Kakashi-sensei a few days after we ran into you in the Iron Country, by the way. Come inside when you get hungry so the food doesn't go to waste. I promise we won't molest you unless you want us to."

The desire to tip his head back and laugh at the stinging whip of chakra across his palms was strong, but he muscled it down and simply raised his hand in a little wave as he strolled back to the house. He altered his path slightly on the return trip, heading for the window instead of the door. While he had been hoping to discourage any more outbursts by being right in Naruto's line of sight, he wasn't all that surprised when he had to literally push Naruto's face back so he could climb into the cabin because she hadn't bothered to look out the window before whirling around and stomping toward it.

"He'll come in when he's ready, stop pestering him," Sakura said, shifting his grip on Naruto's face so he could press down and get her to sit on the floor as he walked by.

"What did he say?" Naruto asked, completely nonplussed about the treatment as she folded her legs and gazed out the window.

"Not much," he said, lifting his shoulders as he poured himself a glass of water from the pitcher next to the stack of bowls by the rice pot. "I think he's more uncomfortable and weirded out about everything than really mad."

"Is not masturbating unhealthy?" Naruto asked, swiveling herself around to face Sakura.

Sakura choked on his water, and took a few moments to cough the liquid from his lungs before hurling an exasperated look of disbelief at Naruto. Her curiously serious expression halted the immediate retort on Sakura's tongue, and he sighed as he knelt in front of the stew to stir it. Naruto hadn't prepared a large meal. It would be just enough to serve one bowl for each of them to stave off the hunger till dinner that night.

"It's neither healthy nor unhealthy physically," he said. "There's a bit of an edge toward masturbation being healthy for men simply because it flushes out the old sperm you've stored up, but your bodies tend to do that naturally while you sleep, anyway. For the most part, the real purpose behind masturbation is more for an emotional and mental benefit than physical, and everyone's sexual drive is different. Some people just don't feel that need for release on a regular basis, and some don't feel it at all."

"You mean like monks and stuff?"

"I suppose you could say it's similar..." Sakura said slowly, sitting back on his heels to gaze contemplatively at the stew as he tried to come up with a simple way to explain it. "That's a spiritual path you choose to take, but it's still all in your head. If you don't want to feel desire and you have the will to control your mind, then, eventually, you stop feeling desire. Your body obeys your mind because sex is not necessary for your survival or your physical well-being. And some people are just like that naturally."

"I don't want Sasuke to become a monk."

"The only way he'd become a monk is if you drive him to it," Sakura drawled, rolling his eyes and spooning up a bit of the stew to taste it. It was good. Not as good as Sasuke's, but still good. "And considering the circumstances, he's probably two steps away from locking himself inside a temple, so don't make the situation-" His eyes connected with Sasuke's as he turned his head to look toward Naruto and the window, and his stomach dropped. "-worse..."

"I'd expect you to be more alert than that as the team commander," Sasuke said, her tone cool but not frigid as she climbed smoothly through the window.

"Meaning you wouldn't have sensed or seen anyone approach the cabin while you had a full view of the surroundings?" Naruto countered wryly, leaning back on her hands as she looked up at Sasuke with a deadpan expression. "It takes balls to admit you suck that bad, I'll give you that. But you don't have to get catty with us for trusting you because we assumed you had some kind of skill."

"I'm saying that, as a shinobi, you should always be on guard," Sasuke grated, her cheeks flushing slightly as she glared down at Naruto's unflappable expression.

"I'm not taking your watch shifts, so stop trying," Naruto said flatly.

"Time to eat!" Sakura said forcefully, slapping his palm on the floor and making the cabin shudder as a faint haze of dust sprinkled down from the ceiling. "And you can stop giving the food the stink-eye, Sasuke. Naruto cooked it," he groused, dropping the usual honorific as he spooned out a bowl of stew and rice for himself before snatching up his glass of water and stepping away to let the girls serve themselves.

The fact that Sasuke's suspicious expression instantly cleared as she crouched down to get herself some food brought a twist of emotions in Sakura. He was intensely glad that the awkward uncomfortable air of Sasuke's arrival had been thoroughly shoved aside with Naruto's intervention, but it was also beyond infuriating that the notion of him not putting the meal together would have such a strong reaction in the stoic Uchiha. This was getting out of hand. He was not THAT bad at cooking, damn it!

"You know," Sakura glowered at the pair as they tucked into their meals. "I do _try_ to make recipes that don't involve an enormous amount of medicinal herbs. And if the two of you would actually let me cook them once in a while, _before_ it gets to the point where I have to just focus on dumping medicine down your throats, I might be able to make them taste good." Naruto and Sasuke exchanged a wary skeptic look, and Sakura felt his eye twitch as his temper reached critical mass. "That's it! Breakfast is officially mine!"

"Sakura-chan," Naruto smiled nervously, lifting her hand in a calming gesture. "You really don't have to trouble yourse-"

"It's no trouble at all!" He snapped heatedly. "I am going to cook the first meal of the day for every mission we're on, and the both of you will EAT it! And, at some point in time, you will LIKE it! Now finish your dinner! We have to set traps in the surrounding area because _someone_ – and I'm not going to say who – decided to destroy the landscape around our safe house."

The girls shot each other accusing glares, but didn't say anything. Sakura watched the silent argument with alert irritation, tapping his nail on his bowl of rice and wondering who he was going to have to hit when the first one opened their mouth. Except neither of them spoke a word. His temper stumbled back in surprise when Naruto hunched her shoulders and turned away from Sasuke in a sulking defiant huff, not conceding defeat but unwilling to argue the point further. Sakura blinked and nearly missed the flash of disappointment and anger in Sasuke's eyes before her features were again schooled into an archly impassive expression as she also turned away.

The rest of the meal was finished in silence, leaving Sakura to mull over the itch at his palms as Sasuke's well-hidden aggravation slowly increased. In a twisted way it made sense that her ire kept on building while Naruto remained quiet even as they cleaned up. The two of them had a convoluted aggressive relationship that was still volatile as they were getting to know each other all over again, but it worked because it was all about balance. If Naruto pestered Sasuke too much, things would explode. Though it wasn't nearly as bad as it had been in the beginning. Unfortunately, the opposite was true as well; if Naruto didn't pester Sasuke enough, the brunette would get edgy because she wasn't being given an outlet for her frustrations.

She had grown accustomed to the pattern of being able to vent on a regular basis over the past several months, and with Naruto denying her the opportunity by staying quiet, she wasn't being given...a release... Sakura blinked at the thought, his eyes widening as he set the bowl he was drying into the cupboard and his cheeks flushing as he took a moment to truly focus on the specific pitch of the tingling seals at his palms. Tightly controlled irritation, leashed and straining against the resistance, without a scrap of killing intent _anywhere_ to be found.

He turned his astonished gaze to Sasuke, taking in the tension of her shoulders as she put the stone bowl away, her jaw muscles flexing as she periodically clenched her teeth, her fingers twitching almost imperceptibly as they slid over the handle of the cupboard to close it with an odd lingering touch. It wasn't anything new, Sakura had seen it before. He had seen it COUNTLESS TIMES! In the beginning it had been an indicator of a possible random explosion, a blink of calm before Naruto's ribbing either churned it into a storm of temper and killing intent, or Sasuke just shut down into an iceberg.

But the calm had lasted a little longer each time, giving him a better chance to divert Sasuke's attention and distract both her and Naruto with something until Sasuke had reined herself back in without shutting down. It was reflexive now, and he had to squash the immediate need to suggest they all split up and head to the forest to set up traps. To give Sasuke space. To leave her alone so she could pull herself together and suppress what was agitating her.

"What?" Sasuke asked, scowling at Sakura's open staring.

"I was just thinking," Sakura said, shaking his head and glancing over at Naruto's curious gaze before stepping over to take the supplies the blonde had been gathering from all of their belongings. "I'll go set the traps up. I told Naruto to harass you into fighting, so it's really my responsibility. Besides," he said, flicking his fingers at the one-room cabin and ignoring Sasuke's bristling aura. "We'll probably be leaving tomorrow, so you two can give the place a good scrubbing and do some laundry. There's a decent breeze and the sun won't set for a few hours. It ought to be dry by the time we turn in for the night."

He didn't wait for a response, ducking out of the door and quickly making his way to the surrounding woods. Sagging back against the rough bark of a tree trunk, he scratched his hand through his pale hair and wondered if he was making the right decision. If things went bad, they'd probably destroy the house. If things went good, then they'd be back to 'normal'. He pushed off the tree with more force than he needed, pacing forward and focusing on setting his first trap as he tried not to think about the third option, and hating himself for hating the possibility.

Every inch of him ached and howled with the desire to go back to the cabin, to confront Sasuke and call her out on the real reason she was so irritable. It twisted in his gut like a cold knife, because he knew he'd never get an honest answer from the Uchiha and his interference would most likely just send her off to hide in the trees again. It grated on his nerves that he was so useless in this situation, and he kicked a stone out of his path as he wallowed for a moment in petty jealousy on his way to set up the next trap.

Naruto was better at getting Sasuke to open up, she always had been. As clumsy, irreverent, and sometimes brutish as her methods were, she had an instinct for seeing the truth buried under the shield of lies others put up around themselves. If anyone could get Sasuke to crack her perfect marble facade and reveal the flawed human being beneath it, it was Naruto. If anyone could get her to just admit she was so sexually repressed and frustrated it made her want to tear her own eyes out, it was Naruto. It wasn't him, it was Naruto.

The fact churned Sakura's stomach as he continued his circle through the shaded forest around the cabin. He wanted it to be HIM! He wanted it to be him so fucking bad! IT WASN'T FAIR! He couldn't scratch and claw and scream at the walls around Sasuke, forcing her to break through on the inside just to shut him up. Forcing her to willingly step into the light for that brief moment before latching onto her and dragging her farther out in a frenzy of determination as Sasuke raged and fought her way back to the security of the shadows.

He didn't have it in him to be so necessarily ruthless on an emotional level every day. He didn't have the fortitude and defiance it took to commit himself to being Sasuke's 'rival' forever...to being the target who set her free with a shared bond of violence in order to communicate. His love for Sasuke was different from Naruto's. It was just as deep and steadfast, but while Naruto lashed out at the walls to get a reaction, Sakura could only lean against them and slip his fingers over the stone to search for the rare moments when a window appeared and he was able to peek in and speak to Sasuke without having her slam everything shut in his face.

Sighing, he stretched his back after setting another trap and looked up into the dappled light of the canopy before moving on. It was a small consolation that those rare moments had been coming more often in the past few months, and he was slowly getting to know Sasuke again in his own way. But it was heartbreaking to sit and wait and watch and wonder if the Sasuke in front of him would ever be willing or even capable of letting herself feel the tender side of love again. The emotion was so deeply associated with tragedy and pain for her, warped and twisted into a hate that had driven her mad.

Sakura wasn't a fool. He knew that any hope he had of Sasuke one day letting go and allowing herself to love someone in a gentle way was years down the road. There were too many wounds and scars, too many years of pain and a vengeful single-minded focus of never EVER letting herself feel that again. She wasn't going to just wake up in a few days and look at the world – at him – with a tender smile. Still, he had hope. Melting a glacier was no easy task, but if he looked back to the beginning, and compared it to now, he could at least see the progress.

Speaking of progress...

Sakura gave his last trap a critical look, then hopped up into the tree branches till he reached one that had a view of the house. The buzzing on his palms had steadily increased, but they weren't jangling with the erratic chakra that accompanied an argument, and the layer of the seals that monitored killing intent were unfazed. Which, of course, meant that Naruto was still being uncharacteristically quiet and polite, while Sasuke was being characteristically snobbish and stubbornly refusing to bait Naruto into the 'discussion' they needed to have.

Letting out another heavy sigh, he slumped down to sit on the wide branch and pulled a knee up to rest his chin on it as he grimaced at the window of the cabin. He could see shadows moving inside, but that was it. Well, he supposed his spontaneous 'plan' had been dubious at best considering he was counting on the predictability of the most unpredictable person on the face of the planet. He couldn't help feeling selfishly relieved, but at the same time he was worried and a little disappointed. Surely Naruto could tell there was something wrong with Sasuke. So why wasn't she doing anything?

The seals on his palms abruptly spiked, and he lifted his chin to watch the shadows in the window more alertly.

"OW!" Naruto's angry voice protested shrilly. "You bastard, what the hell was that for?! What is WRONG with you?!"

"YOU are what's wrong with me!" Sasuke shouted waspishly. "Put some fucking clothes on, idiot!"

"I'M WEARING BOXERS, AND IT'S NOT LIKE YOU CAN SEE ANYTHING WITH THIS BASKET IN THE WAY! QUIT BEING A DICK!"

...the hell?

"Don't you dare, I just washed that part of the floor!"

Naruto darted out the window, apparently having jumped all the way from the other side of the room, and landed in a crouch as she hugged a basket of laundry to her chest. A bundle of clothes were on top of the clean linens. Setting the basket down, she turned to the window and Sakura rubbed his temples as his blood warmed up at the sight of all that skin. Well, that explained a few things, at any rate. Something came flying out the window, draping over Naruto's face before she whipped it off and brandished it furiously.

"Damn it, if you wanted this washed along with your trousers, then you should've-"

"PUT IT ON AND SHUT UP, PERVERT!"

"YOU'RE the naked one, now, and I'M the pervert?!" Naruto retorted, shoving the grey shirt over her head.

"I'm still covered up!" Sasuke retorted.

Sakura could only guess that Naruto said something in reply that he couldn't hear, because the next instant a bucket of water came hurtling out the window. Naruto caught it midair, quickly twisting it away to save the laundry and herself from getting drenched.

"What crawled up your ass and died today?!" Naruto railed, viciously throwing the bucket back through the open window. "I TOLD you what happened! I TOLD you I would help you! Why are you being so-"

"I DON'T NEED YOUR HELP!"

"YES YOU DO, GOD DAMN IT!"

Naruto stomped up to the window just in time for Sasuke to appear and jab her finger into the blonde's chest to stop her from climbing into the house. Sakura's eyes went straight to Sasuke's chest, noting that his bra was a cup size too small for the brunette. He felt a short flare of resentment before he had to look away and count the leaves for a moment to get his stupid body under control. Looking back at the pair, he couldn't hear what they were saying anymore, though the conversation was getting heated if Naruto's hand gestures were anything to go by.

And then the unexpected happened. Sasuke grabbed two fistfuls of Naruto's hair, kissed her rather brutally, then shoved her away before ducking back inside the house. It was brief, and looked a bit painful if Sakura was going to be honest about it, but he couldn't stop the jealousy from burning the back of his teeth. Naruto seemed to be at a loss, rubbing tenderly at her head as she glanced between the house and the basket of laundry at her bare feet. A tangle of emotions knotted and snarled in his chest, making him scratch at his shin as Naruto spat out a curse and started hanging the laundry up on the lines at the back of the cabin.

It hadn't worked. A selfish piece of him was crowing at it, because there was a slight chance that Sasuke's 'first time' was still available for HIM. Which was stupid and naïve of him for so many reasons he just wanted to bash his head against the tree! He shoved the feelings aside, acknowledging them as something he couldn't stop, but refusing to let them lead his thoughts. The seals were thrumming and itching into his skin, aching and whining against the bones of his hands, and he clenched his fists as his anger boiled at that fool of an Uchiha. Sasuke was worse off than before, and Naruto was at a severe disadvantage with both of them being in female bodies.

Sakura had shown her what to do, but she had no practical experience doing it herself. She needed a patient and cooperative partner while she fumbled through the first few minutes and figured everything out properly. Sasuke was obviously in no frame of mind to be patient or cooperative, and she had forcefully demonstrated that in order to keep Naruto away. To keep her from getting too close and seeing the cracks in the wall. If Naruto took Sasuke's 'invitation', it would end in disaster and Sasuke would shut down into that unapproachable iceberg before Naruto had a chance to help her. Sasuke had set Naruto up for failure, and Naruto knew it.

Dropping out of the tree, he stalked his way to the cabin and silently helped Naruto hang the last of the linens. He was still seething by the time they were finished, but he had centered himself enough to know he could keep his temper in check so he could get the whole ridiculous situation back under control. Snatching the back of Naruto's borrowed shirt before she could walk off into the woods, he dragged her to the window and dumped her inside. Sasuke had effectively scrubbed herself into the far corner, and her dark eyes snapped up with a flash of bloody red as Naruto tumbled onto the clean wet floor.

"There's something we all need to discuss," Sakura said darkly, toeing his sandals off before perching on the windowsill.

Sasuke dropped her scrub brush into her bucket of water and stood up to leave. Sakura let himself appreciate the view of Sasuke in nothing but a bra that was too small and a clingy pair of navy blue boxers, but his ire was broiling too hot for him to give in to the warmth of desire.

"I'm going to have to write up an official post-mission report," he continued, boring holes into Sasuke's wide-eyed horrified gaze as she froze.

"We'll be back to normal tomorrow," Sasuke hissed venomously, slicing her hand through the air. "There's no need-"

"That flower is too dangerous to ignore," Sakura interrupted coldly.

"Not for another _hundred years!"_ Sasuke spat.

"Which is how shit like _this_ happens in the first place!" Sakura countered furiously, pointing at himself. "But just the knowledge of what's in that forest doesn't necessarily mean I have to detail what happened to all of us," he continued before Sasuke could rally another protest. "Barring the possibility that whatever unique properties that flower has may be an enormous help in the medical field, I can't and won't hide the intimate knowledge I've gained about the physiology of a male body, because being stuck like this for just a few days can help me better understand and help my patients." He paused for a beat to look at both Naruto and Sasuke.

"However, the two of you don't have the same obligations that I do. Extenuating circumstances sometimes happen on missions, and it's up to the team commander to use discretion for those individual situations as long as no laws or regulations have been violated, and the events and people involved don't give any indication that they will pose a threat in the future. As completely insane as all three of us have gone because of this mess, I sincerely doubt that it has traumatized any of us to the point of making us dangerously unstable. Your transformations don't need to be mentioned, and aside from me giving a clinical report on my temporary physical changes, everything that happens out here will STAY out here."

"How are they going to believe that you were the only one transformed?" Sasuke asked skeptically, folding her arms as her posture visibly relaxed from the frantic tension of earlier.

"There are some very good arguments for it without falling back on the dubious 'it must only affect girls' assumption," Sakura replied. "Any documentation on that flower would be centuries old, and the science they had back then doesn't compare to the methods we have now. It's going to be catalogued as a new or recovered species, and even if there is a detailed essay on the thing collecting dust somewhere, we still have some significant variables. The biggest is that while Naruto is the only one who can enter Sennin Mode, you're both capable of using and controlling nature chakra. I'm not. You also have a kekkei genkai, and that makes your DNA unique," he said, then pointed to Naruto.

"You have the kyuubi, which makes your chakra unique. My report is going to obviously be lacking a lot of details about what happened while we were holed up in the safe house, but that's my right to privacy as well as my right as team commander to protect _your_ privacy," he said firmly, looking between the girls. "I'll use my option to give a strictly confidential verbal report to the Hokage alone. Which means she's the only other person who will know about your transformations, and I have no intention of telling her anything besides the fact that you were both stuck as girls for a few days. As much as Shishou would love to tease the hell out of you both, I know she wouldn't breathe a word of it."

"What about us?" Naruto asked, her brow furrowed and her eyes unsure. "Can't we talk about this ever again?"

"No, we can't," Sasuke growled, her eyes glowing menacingly.

"I'm not going to force an order of silence on him," Sakura said pointedly, glaring at Sasuke before turning to Naruto. "But if you want to talk about it, then it has to be kept just between the four of us. It's probably safest while we're out on missions when we know there's no one around, and we can talk in the Hokage's office, my office at the hospital, or in the privacy of our hom-."

"If either of you bring this up in my presence while we're in Konoha, I'll kill you," Sasuke interrupted frigidly.

"Geeze, we get it already, don't get your pants in a twist," Naruto groaned, rolling her eyes. "We won't talk to you about it, so calm your masculine insecurities down."

Sakura would have liked to indulge in the humor of Naruto's statement, but the way Sasuke went rigid and stopped herself from lashing out a retort turned his stomach sour. She let Naruto have the argument because they were arguing about two separate things. Naruto thought it was all about Sasuke's ego – which, to be honest, Sakura knew was a very large part of it – while Sasuke was referring more to the fact that she didn't want her ANBU surveillance guards finding out about this particular secret. Not that a trained ANBU would gossip like a schoolgirl, and their reports were sealed under strict confidentiality. But that didn't take the sting out of the realization that more people would know, and that there was a record of it.

Sakura sighed and stretched out a leg to poke his toes into Naruto's shoulder, derailing any further remarks along that train of thought. "Come on, the floor's all messed up again, let's help Sasuke-kun clean it."

Naruto grumbled about how it wasn't her fault that she'd been thrown through the window, but she shuffled sullenly to the washroom to rinse her feet after a dark look from Sakura. Brushing the dust off his feet, he took a deep breath and steadied his nerves as he gripped the zipper to his borrowed jacket. The dangerous tension had left the air, and without that to focus on he was becoming far too acutely aware of how much skin was on display in front of him. He could have dealt with it and hidden his embarrassment, but the seals were humming against his palms, and the way Sasuke's shoulders twitched as she stole a glance at the front door as if planning an escape route let him know he wasn't alone in his discomfort.

"Here," Sakura said, stepping up to the brunette and holding out Naruto's jacket. He felt naked and exposed, clenching his fist at his side and refusing to acknowledge the heat flushing his cheeks as Sasuke raked her gaze over him with wary suspicion.

"What," she replied flatly, crossing her arms and narrowing her eyes.

There wasn't a single doubt in Sakura's mind that Sasuke had absolutely no idea how OBSCENELY EFFECTIVE her haughty little display actually was...and that the effect she was going for was the complete opposite of what was being 'displayed'. He closed his eyes and took another deep breath, desperately trying to quash the tingling heat that made his groin shiver and throb.

"Cleavage," Sakura grated through clenched teeth, leveling a black gaze at Sasuke as he made damn sure to look only at her abruptly widening eyes. The jacket was snatched out of his hand in a flash, and he turned on his heel to retrieve the broom and another bucket from the closet near the door.

"I never would have guessed that you swung both ways," Sasuke snorted caustically, brushing invisible lint off the jacket and eyeing her teammates. "Either of you."

Sakura arched an amused brow at the half-hearted conviction and force behind Sasuke's insult as he handed the empty bucket to an angrily sputtering Naruto, a smirk pulling at his lips.

"I don't," Sakura shrugged, folding his hands over the end of the broom and propping his chin on them thoughtfully. "I suppose it's different for women, though. Well, most of us, anyway. We're pretty touchy-feely, we like to dress each other up, harmless playful flirting is fun, and we have no problem whatsoever admiring and appreciating another woman's figure. Sasuke-kun is still Sasuke-kun. Naruto is still Naruto. The fact that you're both sporting a whole new arsenal of physical attributes doesn't change the fact that you're still you. The problem for me isn't that _your_ bodies changed, it's that _my_ body changed, and I can't think the same way I used to think without...significantly obvious and humiliating consequences."

"You really hate being a man," Sasuke said neutrally, canting her head.

"And you really hate being a woman," Sakura responded just as neutrally.

There was a heavy pause as they both regarded each other with an almost calculating aura.

"And I don't really give a shit either way," Naruto said in exasperation, throwing her hands up in the air with the empty bucket swinging from her grasp. "I don't care if you turned into a hot chick all of a sudden," she said, pointing an accusing finger at Sasuke. "You're still a bastard with a stick shoved so far up your ass you could sprout leaves from your ears," she huffed indignantly, and stomped into the washroom to fill the bucket with water.

Sakura watched Sasuke blink at the washroom doorway, the startled look on her features shifting to a familiar outrage.

"Hey, at least he called you hot," Sakura grinned wickedly, keeping his voice just low enough for only Sasuke to hear over the sound of water from the washroom.


	3. Being Human Sucks

**[** OMG THERE'S **SEX** IN THIS CHAPTER! **]**

**Being Human Sucks**

Sasuke's face turned scarlet, but Sakura didn't see whatever wrathful expression she turned on him because he was focused on sweeping up the dirt and grass Naruto had tracked into the house. Not that it was working since it was just sticking and smearing over the damp floor, but he half-swept half-scrubbed at the wood until Sasuke collected herself enough to splash some water at his feet so Sakura had something to work with. He sang a little thank you without looking up, leaning harder into the broom as his work began revealing a subtle hint of the actual wood grain pattern in the almost black floor.

They fell into an unspoken rhythm of teamwork. Sasuke cracked the layers of grime that had built up over the years with her stiff-wired brush, Sakura completed the process with the thick bristles of the broom, and Naruto brought water in to the front of the procession as well as mopping it up from behind them. The amber light of the late afternoon sun spilled across the floor by the time they were finished, and none of them spoke as they leaned back against the wall near the front door to survey their handiwork.

The silence was thick as they stared at the floor, almost suffocating as Sakura's heart thundered painfully in his chest. Without thinking, looking up, or asking, he reached out to either side of him and grabbed onto Naruto and Sasuke's shirt sleeves. He could feel his eyes burning as he swallowed against his throat closing up, and he blinked again and again without looking away from the cleaned floorboards. He refused to cry, refused to panic. He had his girls there with him, he could feel the warmth of their skin through the fabric he was gripping so tight he was sure he'd rip it soon.

They were alive. They were together. They were one of the lucky teams to come into the safe house without adding to the sporadic pattern that sprinkled and pooled and overlapped and streaked and soaked into the wood to stain it until it couldn't be scrubbed away. This could have been them, but it wasn't. This had almost been them, but it wasn't. Sakura squeezed his eyes shut and took a deep shuddering breath, snapping his fingers out to grip the solid muscle of Naruto and Sasuke's forearms, reassuring himself that they were still right there where he could feel the pulse of life under his hands.

This had been them once...but now it wasn't. Now it _wasn't!_ They didn't leave him! They were right there! They were right there next to him and they were HIS and they weren't going ANYWHERE! EVER!

"It hasn't cooled off," Naruto said quietly, her voice sounding distant through the howling in Sakura's ears.

"It'll be a warm night," Sasuke replied, the off-handed shrug coming through in her tone as she remained still.

"Let's sleep outside, then. It'll be too stuffy in here."

"Doesn't matter to me."

"I hate you both," Sakura choked, yanking them in and wrapping his arms around both of them so he could have one brief moment of breathing them in, fingers laced in their hair as they stumbled against him in surprise, their breath quick and warm against either side of his neck. Just for a moment. Just for a heartbeat, and he let them go before they could stiffen up and struggle. "Life would be so much easier if I didn't have the two of you to worry about," he sighed dramatically, ducking out through the door and scratching at his hair as he looked up at the cloudless sky.

"I'll get dinner," Sasuke said, stepping out of the cabin.

"I'll start the fire," Naruto offered, closing the door behind her.

"The bugs will be out in force on a night like this. I'll make up something to keep them away," Sakura said with a watery smile, then shook his head and trotted off to collect the ingredients he'd seen in the area while he'd been setting up the traps. They really were hopeless. All of them...

Gathering enough of the pungent herbs and mosses without stripping any one area bare took a little while, but he made it back in time to boil everything into a tea before they wore themselves down keeping the insects away with surges of chakra. He ducked into the cabin briefly, only long enough to grab a jar of honey from one of the cupboards, and spooned a generous amount into the steaming pot to dull the sharp sour taste. In all honesty, he didn't think it was that bad with the honey added. It was almost like drinking an earthy ginger and lemongrass tea that had been made too strong.

After they all bolted down the tea, they retrieved the dry laundry and re-distributed all the borrowed clothes while dinner simmered over the fire. By the time they were scooping helpings of the vegetable stew and crunching on the tiny grilled fish between bites of rice, the bugs were no longer a factor. Conversation was minimal, but the subdued quiet was comfortable rather than tense, and Sakura enjoyed the rare moment of calm. There was enough leftover stew and rice to make porridge for breakfast, so Sakura sealed the pots to prevent them from spoiling or attracting animals and set them aside while the girls took care of the dishes.

"Well, tomorrow's the big day, huh?" Naruto said, flopping back on her bedroll.

"God, I can't wait," Sakura groaned, rolling his shoulders and leaning back on his hands as he stretched his legs out in front of him. As informative and...admittedly pleasurable, but also insanely frustrating and a little bit traumatizing as the experience of being a man had been, he sincerely missed his old body. He was never going to be unappreciative or self-conscious of his cute little breasts again. EVER.

"Agreed," Sasuke muttered, flicking a few blades of grass off her blanket and sitting down.

"You sure do like missing out on golden opportunities," Naruto said, propping herself up on her elbow to grimace wryly across the fire at Sasuke. "You do know that restoring your Clan is going to eventually involve you getting naked with a woman, right?"

"Be quiet for once in your moronic life," Sasuke sighed, sliding a weary condescending glance at the blonde before turning her attention back to stoking the fire.

"No, seriously," Naruto scowled, her expression becoming serious. "You do _know_ that, right?"

"Naruto..." Sakura interjected warningly, a cold stone forming in his belly at the topic.

"Did you think about all the paperwork and the intricate balance of politics to maintain peace between Countries when you were caterwauling about becoming Hokage as a kid?" Sasuke asked crisply, narrowing her eyes at Naruto.

Naruto remained silent, the muscles in her jaw tensing as she clenched her teeth and never let her steely gaze waver from Sasuke's frigid stare.

"As long as I can restore the pride and honor of my Clan's name while carrying on Itachi's will, I don't care if the bloodline dies with me," she said coldly.

Sakura closed his eyes, fighting back the pain of hearing a truth he'd suspected for quite a long time, but didn't want to acknowledge. It hurt more than he wanted to admit, an icy hollow regret splintering behind his ribs. Nothing was said for several seconds, and the only noise was the crackling of the fire and the chirping of frogs in the distance.

"That's probably for the best," Naruto snorted derisively, and Sakura whipped a livid disbelieving glare at her as the blonde flumped onto her back and tucked one arm behind her head. "I mean, as long as we're being brutally honest about it, let's face facts. The way you are now, you're more likely to eat babies than raise them."

Sakura's brain short-circuited for a moment, and he slouched forward to press his fingertips to his forehead as the seals on his palms started to itch.

"But I suppose it's a moot point, it's not like you can even reproduce with that 'problem' you have," Naruto continued, waving her hand dismissively over her pelvis.

"I do not have a 'problem'..." Sasuke grated, her eyes flashing red.

"Whatever, baby-eater," Naruto retorted, sitting up and glaring right back at the brunette.

The seals buzzed against the bones of Sakura's hands, but he held back the desire to end the argument and stood up instead. He wasn't feeling all that generous at the moment, and the idea of leaving the pair to really scrap it out was somewhat appealing in a petty vindictive kind of way.

"I'm going to do a perimeter check," he said, turning and walking away. "Don't kill each other while I'm gone."

"Bastard, now look what you did!" Naruto hissed furiously. "And don't even give me that look..."

The rest of whatever Naruto said faded into the distance as Sakura leapt into the trees and focused his senses on the task ahead so he could navigate safely in the darkening shade of evening. He was perfectly aware that he was sulking, and he honestly didn't give a shit. Damn it, he was entitled to an occasional bout of morose disappointment and self-pity, especially after that conversation! So, he let himself wallow for several minutes until the seals on his palms began spiking erratically with the growing intensity of the girls' little spat.

Shaking himself out of his funk, he circled all the way around the area until he stepped out of the forest behind the cabin. Leaning back against the neatly stacked firewood at the back of the house, he let the sound of the girls' voices wash over him without paying attention to what he could make out of their distant arguing. He heaved a big sigh and scrubbed his face. Naruto was right, and he knew it. Sasuke was a far cry from a loving fatherly type at the moment.

_At the moment._

She was still wary and untrusting of everyone around her, but that didn't mean she would stay that way forever. Sakura had seen the gradual changes over the months, a slow cautious ease of tension. Hell, even this horrendous mess they were in had opened Sasuke up more than he'd seen since they had been Genin together. It helped that he knew he wasn't at all ready to be a mother yet either, but having the idle frivolous fantasy crushed by a cold voice still hurt. He looked down at himself, fingering the cloth over his stomach and hating the maleness of what he saw.

Scratching at his scalp, he tucked his hair behind his ears and took a deep breath. The argument beyond the other side of the cabin was gaining momentum, and he could almost make out what they were saying without having to concentrate to understand them. He pursed his lips and suppressed his chakra, silently keeping to the darker shadows of the cabin to peek around the corner of the house until he could spy the two figures sitting across from each other next to the fire. Sure, he knew he should probably be stalking over to them to break up the fight, but that lingering still-angry part of him wanted to see how everything unfolded.

"I bet you haven't even felt yourself up this whole damn time!" Naruto said scathingly, waving her arms. "What did you do when you took a shower? Wash your hair and just pretend the rest of you was clean by default?!"

Sakura sagged heavily against the house and pinched the bridge of his nose, resisting the urge to groan and thankful that he had not blindly walked in on the middle of that conversation. Sasuke gave Naruto a trenchant look and stood up to leave, but the blonde was on top of her in a flash of light, knocking them both to the ground where she sat on Sasuke's stomach and punched the earth above her head as the golden chakra cloak vanished.

"Don't you dare run from me, you coward!" Naruto snapped. "We're having an honest moment here! So let's just keep on being honest, because I'm not buying that bullshit you fed me earlier today! When was the last time you rubbed one out!"

"Get off of me!" Sasuke snarled, shoving Naruto back so she could sit up.

Naruto dug her feet into the dirt and latched onto the sleeves of Sasuke's shirt, refusing to budge off her lap. Sakura's eyebrows shot up in surprise at the position the girls were in, but he kept quiet.

"Nothing, huh?" Naruto growled. "You're just gonna grope my boobs and not react at _all?!_ I know they're small, but they're still there!"

Sasuke glanced down with wide eyes and jerked her hands back as if she'd been burned, her face turning scarlet as she twisted and slammed Naruto onto her back when the blonde stubbornly refused to let go of her arms.

"What the fuck is your problem?!" Sasuke spat. "Is your brain seriously that weak and small that you have to think with your dick all the time?! Just accept the fact that I do not care about sex!"

"Bullshit!" Naruto railed, hooking her legs tight around Sasuke's waist and fisting her hands in the dark hair to drag her down for a kiss just as brutal as the brunette had given her earlier that day.

Jealousy spiked through Sakura's chest, writhing into a convoluted mess of shock and _want_ because her palms were vibrating and pulsing as Sasuke lunged forcefully into the kiss, pinning Naruto beneath her and grinding her hips in between the blonde's legs. Heat flushed through Sakura, and everything was getting tight and tingly and _needy_ despite the fact that he could not even believe he had turned into a fucking PEEPER! Unfortunately, the rational flare of disgust at himself never stood a chance against the maelstrom of irrational thoughts crowding his head and forcing him to grip the front of his jacket so his hands wouldn't stray to places that ached and throbbed and _begged_ to be touched.

He knew he shouldn't be watching this. He knew he should be turning around and hobbling back into the forest, but he couldn't tear his gaze away, couldn't move, couldn't think. This wasn't a lovingly intimate romantic moment he could automatically turn from and feel guilty witnessing, it was violent and frantic like a sparring match gone incomprehensibly awry. Somewhere in the back of his head he noted clinically that their lips were going to be bruised and cut because they were kissing each other too clumsily and hard with a lot of teeth flashing angrily. He was going to have to heal those injuries.

Unaccountably his dick twitched at the idea of getting close enough to brush his fingers over those abused lips, and then thinking stopped again because Naruto was wrestling Sasuke's shirt off of her, kicking her heel into the ground to get leverage so she could flip their positions. Sasuke didn't want to relinquish control so easily, and while Naruto's arms were still lifted to toss the grey shirt aside, the brunette heaved herself off her back and whipped Naruto's shirt over her head before twisting it around her fist to trap the blonde's arms in the material.

Naruto was unfazed, digging her toes into the grassy turf and pushing forward on the brunette's lap to latch her mouth onto Sasuke's throat. Sasuke sucked in air through clenched teeth at the contact, her black eyes rolling back for a moment before she snapped them forward again. But that brief distraction had given Naruto the opportunity to wriggle one of her arms free, and she scratched her nails down Sasuke's back, hooking her fingers at the back of the bra and yanking it till the clasp broke.

Shit...he needed to wear that thing tomorrow, and now he was going to have to repair it. Whatever. Didn't matter. That's why he carried a sewing kit. Naruto's shirt was cast aside as Sasuke untangled herself from the bra, and the blonde slid back a bit to hunch over so she could wrap her lips around one of Sasuke's erect nipples. Sakura just caught sight of a flash of teeth in the firelight, and instantly winced in sympathy as he tucked his arms up to hug his flat chest.

"Ow, damn it!" Sasuke yowled, gripping Naruto's hair and jerking her back. "What are you trying to do?! Bite it off?!"

"You weren't complaining about my teeth earlier!" Naruto retorted defiantly.

"How would you like it if I bit down on one of your nuts, dumbass!" Sasuke shouted, shoving Naruto onto her back again and ducking her head to one of the blonde's small breasts, taking nearly the whole thing into her mouth like she was going to eat it.

"Oi, I get it! I'm sorry!" Naruto squeaked in panic, grabbing Sasuke's hair.

But instead of pushing the brunette away, she was suddenly shuddering and curling forward with a gasp, throwing her head back and digging her heels into the small of Sasuke's back. Sakura shivered and had to remind himself to keep his breathing quiet, because the skin on his pecs was zinging under his palms and he just wanted his breasts back, damn it! The thought of that sensitive flesh being taken in and massaged with an aggressive tongue and gentle, _gentle_ teeth made his stomach quiver.

Swallowing the dryness in his throat, he summoned the will to lower his hands to his sides. He definitely needed to stop thinking about that. And stop peeping. Maybe. In a minute. When he was sure they were going to figure things out properly. Yeah, that was a good reason to stay. Because there was the off chance that they might need assistance, and he could be there to help them, and...and...fuck he was so hard it wasn't even funny...

"Holy shit, how does she function normally with a body like this?!" Naruto panted.

"Fuck if I know," Sasuke said, nibbling her way up the center of Naruto's chest to her collarbone and sliding a hand down the front of her pants.

There was a significant pause as Naruto arched a brow and tilted her head.

"You seriously don't even know what you're doing down there, do you," Naruto snerked, giving Sasuke an unimpressed and highly amused look.

"Screw you!" Sasuke snapped, her face catching fire.

"Yeah, I know, and you're failing at it, loser," she drawled, shifting her hips and rolling them over again. "Oh, and one more thing before I show you how this is actually done correctly," she said, sensuously flexing her back to lay on top of the slightly taller young woman and maneuver her legs in between Sasuke's. "When the first wave hits you and leaves you feeling disappointed, don't blame me because you blew your wad early like a little bitch."

"As if you could even get me there, you no-talent hack," Sasuke sneered.

"You better believe I can, bastard," Naruto purred, grinning impishly as she slithered down to quickly strip the rest of Sasuke's clothes down to her ankles as the brunette propped herself on her elbows with a somewhat wary suspicious look beginning to cloud her features.

Then Naruto was darting her arms beneath Sasuke's thighs and grabbing her hips, the blonde head disappearing between those legs. Sasuke let out an undignified noise of fright and tried to get her feet untangled from the pants that were pinned beneath Naruto's knees.

"If you bite me down there, I'll kill y-" Sasuke's furious words and struggling were cut off with a strangled cry, her eyes widening impossibly before squeezing shut as she hunched forward and trembled. In no time at all her shoulders sagged and she fell back on her elbows to blink her eyes clear.

"Well, that was fast," Naruto said, sitting lazily back on her heels as she licked her lips and flashed a cocky smirk. "Now, tell me the truth. How did it feel to cum to the name U-zu-ma-ki Na-ru-to?" She asked, slowly enunciating her own name with a lewd amount of tongue involved, drawing out the 'z', humming the 'm' and 'n', rolling the 'r', and popping the 't'.

Sakura felt his knees turn soft, knowing how disgustingly talented Naruto was with his tongue and how painfully delicious that would have felt in his female body, buzzing and thrumming and dancing over skin so hypersensitive it crackled with pleasure. He had to grip his thighs and close his eyes briefly to gather his focus again. When he opened his eyes again, Sasuke had turned a very careful shade of tomato red as she scowled at Naruto in a mixture of rage and humiliation.

"Unimpressive..." she grated heatedly.

"I told you it would be if you creamed your shorts early, quick-draw," Naruto shrugged arrogantly, shifting her feet to settle her hip on the grass and lean her forearm casually on Sasuke's bent knee. "So, what's it gonna be? Are you cashed in and spent after that weak little show?"

"I fucking hate you so much," Sasuke snarled as she lurched up onto her knees, fisting a hand in Naruto's hair and kissing her ravenously while her other hand swiftly unbuttoned and yanked at the blonde's trousers.

"The feeling's mutual," Naruto growled against Sasuke's lips as they paused for a moment so she could squirm out of her pants. She grunted in surprise as Sasuke gripped Naruto's ankle and pushed her back down to the ground, straddling the other tanned leg. "Gonna try again, huh?" She taunted, hauling the brunette down for another forceful kiss as Sasuke let go so Naruto could hook her leg around Sasuke's waist.

Naruto abruptly flinched and shivered, her mouth open and barely brushing Sasuke's lips. Sasuke arched a delicate brow and smirked victoriously, licking her lips so her tongue skated along Naruto's mouth.

"God damn geniuses..." Naruto groused, tipping her head back and digging her nails into Sasuke's shoulders as her frame tensed and writhed. "Stop pussy-footing around and give me more," she hissed, nipping at Sasuke's ear and arching her back as the brunette sank her teeth into Naruto's neck.

The firelight glimmered off the fine sheen of sweat covering both their bodies, flickering and dancing shadows over the gentle curves, brightening their skin with teasing glimpses of faded red lines and bite marks that itched to have a tongue and lips tracing soothing patterns over them. Sakura didn't remember making the conscious decision to let his hand slip between his legs, but it didn't matter because he just couldn't take it anymore. His brain was too hazy, and the need was too raw.

Naruto's hair looked orange in the firelight, her arms a darker burnished color against the gold of Sasuke's back, fingers flexing and scratching, pulling and grasping as Sasuke bit and tongued her way down Naruto's chest. Sakura molded his side to the wall of the cabin, easing out slow languid strokes and trying not to think about what he was holding in his hand, just sinking into the sensations and letting them cloud his vision. He could imagine how it would feel to trade places with Naruto in that foggy state of mind, drugged with pleasure but not drunk with a frantic lust, where he could leave his current identity behind and remember what it was like to be a woman again.

He could be _her_.

Grass tickling her spine and the back of her leg, getting caught between her toes as she rolled her hips into Sasuke's nimble fingers. Her breath catching swift in her throat at the bites across her skin that were just shy of painful, tingling and jittering under hot breath and a slick tongue. Everything about Sasuke soft and supple, limber and smooth and inviting beneath her touch. Fine bones and delicate curves, sensitive skin that quivered and trembled so easily as they both searched out those countless tender little areas that could bring on a storm of passion.

The fire warm against her side, a body hot above her, and the night air just cool enough to heighten her senses and make goose bumps break out as the sweat rolled down the inside of her leg where she was hooked around Sasuke's slender waist. Flexing and tensing her muscles, scratching up her back and tangling her fingers in that short dark hair as her nerves rattled and clamored in a cacophony of overwhelming snarling pleasure. Full lips on hers, hungry and vicious, plump breasts pillowed against her own with that lithe body straddled and grinding on her thigh.

Suddenly Sasuke was looking straight at Sakura, her chin tilted down and her hooded black eyes roiling with an unfathomable dark intensity that seared through him, body and soul. The world flashed white at the edges of Sakura's vision as release slammed into him, but he never blinked away from that gaze. Not even when his legs folded under him and he slid to the ground to pant and gasp in the shadow of the cabin as Naruto arched and bucked and cried out beneath Sasuke while she reached the first moments of her climax. And all Sakura could think about was just wanting to punch that damn egotistical smirk off of Sasuke's face.

"What the fuck are you doing?!" Naruto railed with breathless venom, snatching a fistful of Sasuke's hair and forcing her to look down at her. "Don't just stop! I'm not finished yet!"

Sakura allowed himself a silent malicious chuckle at the bewildered shock on Sasuke's features, shaking his head and wiping his sticky hand clean on the grass. Pushing himself to his wobbly legs, he trundled off into the forest without looking back or paying attention to the fading voices. After catching his breath and mustering up enough strength to get himself into the canopy, he sank down on a wide branch and slumped his shoulder against the smooth bark of the tree to stare wearily out into the darkness.

The minutes ticked by, and he heard Naruto's wrathful cussing accompanied by an agitated pinging over his palms from Sasuke. Against his better judgement, he felt a genuine surge of pity for the pair. Sasuke had inadvertently timed her actions with Naruto just right, and had thrown the blonde into the unholy maelstrom that led to the third wave. He sighed and swung his feet idly, situating himself a little more comfortably in his perch as he leaned the side of his head against the tree trunk.

He had faith in Naruto's determination, so he was sure they were going to be busy with each other for a while until she finally made it through to the end and felt the sky rip open for her. She certainly deserved to have that after this whole mess. Sakura couldn't deny that, regardless of the lingering twinges of jealousy. He tried not to imagine what was going on, but it was difficult because he could _hear_ it, and he knew if he turned around he would be able to see the silhouette of tangled bodies framed by the firelight.

He didn't want to think about the myriad of reasons that would explain why Sasuke's chakra was becoming increasingly erratic and jangling through the seals on his palms strong enough to make his fingers tingle with pins and needles. He didn't want to think about how he probably could have _joined_ them if he'd stayed. He didn't want to think about how _good_ it would have felt to toss what few morals he had left to the wayside, and embrace the dirty sex-drunk pervert he had apparently morphed into. He didn't want to think about the crazy irrational part of his brain that kept trying to convince him of how it wouldn't have been pervy or dirty of him to join them if he had still been a woman.

Sex was sex! It was two naked bodies writhing against each other, kissing and touching and tasting and exploring all those secret little places that drove you mad with desire. Naruto and Sasuke were having sex right now, and the fact that they were both female did not make the act any less...well, sexual! Sakura scratched at his hair in frustration, unable to get past the twisting thread of discomfort in his belly that kept insisting his involvement would somehow make the act more...permanent and tainted.

Which was unbelievably absurd, because there was nothing chaste and innocent about the sounds Naruto was making. There was nothing sweet and naïve about the curl of longing and arousal her voice evoked in him. And there was nothing - short of a direct verbal invitation - that would convince him to go over there and join them. Time dragged on, and he refused to keep track of it. A thick silence eventually fell over the forest, humming with had been's and could have been's and may be's. He didn't turn around when he felt Sasuke's approach, keeping his gaze locked out in the dark woods.

"Why," she said.

Sakura closed his eyes for a beat and gave a quiet sigh. He hated the way Sasuke didn't ask questions, instead turning what could have been a simple polite inquiry into a cold emotionless demand. When he had been younger it had been cool to hear Sasuke speak that way to others, and later on it had hurt to have that cold tone turned his way. Now it made him bristle.

"Why what," Sakura replied, not bothering to keep the bite out of his voice.

Sasuke made an irritated little noise, and Sakura could picture the disgusted look on her face. "Why did you watch. Why did you leave. Why didn't you come back."

"I watched because I thought the two of you were simply going to fight, but you didn't and I was startled at first, and it just...happened," Sakura grated, focusing his eyes on the leaves several feet away. "I left because you saw me. I didn't come back because I wasn't ready to."

"You enjoyed watching."

"So what if I did! You enjoyed being watched!" Sakura snapped, hating the heat prickling at his cheeks.

"Why didn't you join us."

Sakura finally turned to glare at her, his scathing reply falling short as he found himself staring at very _naked_ Uchiha. WHAT THE FUCK! What the hell was she even trying to accomplish by doing that?! He rolled his eyes and looked away in exasperation for a moment, then swung his legs up to swivel around and fold them in front of him as he scowled up at Sasuke. He didn't give a shit about the heat pooling in his belly. His dick could do whatever it wanted to at this point, and that included falling off.

"This isn't one of Kakashi-sensei's porn novels," he said tartly. "I had no intention of interfering with what the two of you were doing."

"You wanted to."

"That's irrelevant! I still have _some_ self-control."

"What is it about this..._body_...that's even appealing to you," Sasuke said, the wealth of distaste in her tone cutting through the air.

"I'd like to say it appeals to me because you're in it, but that's hardly an honest statement at the moment," he said, crossing his arms and slouching angrily back. In the dim light of the slivered crescent moon he could see Sasuke's shoulders stiffen as she clenched her hands at her sides. He ignored it along with the jangling of chakra at his palms. "I like the line of your neck, your breasts fill out a shirt nicely without making you look top-heavy, and your arms have just the right amount of definition. You've got a great figure and a fantastic ass, but Naruto has nicer legs and I like his hips and waistline better."

There was a heavy pause before Sasuke canted her head slightly and narrowed her eyes, looking more offended and outraged than pleased at the compliments. "What about my real body."

"About the same," Sakura shrugged after a moment of thought. "Except without the 'fantastic ass' part, because you're always hiding it under this thing," he said, plucking at the cloth wrapped over his legs.

"I don't understand."

"Well, that makes two of us," Sakura said. "What are you even talking ab-" A flash of movement cut his words off, the sound of wood cracking next to his ears as Sasuke's hands slammed against the tree.

"I don't understand why I like you better this way," Sasuke hissed, her eyes inches from Sakura's and her lips drawn back furiously.

"So, you like me better as a man?" Sakura sneered, leaning forward to literally butt heads with the brunette as his temper flared.

"I _hate_ your body," Sasuke said scathingly. "I can't stand looking at it! You've had a dick between your legs for two days, and it makes me sick just thinking about it!"

Blinking at the perplexing response, Sakura narrowed his eyes after a thoughtful second and tilted a patronizing smile. "Sounds like you understand things just fine. It's called jealousy, Sasuke-_chan."_

"I want it back," she growled, pressing forward until Sakura's head halted against the smooth bark of the tree as she slipped her hand under the dark fabric covering his legs.

"What for?" Sakura asked caustically, digging his nails into his arms and fighting back the urge to shiver at the feel of a hand ghosting up his thighs. "It's not like you're going to do anything with it."

"I want it back so I can fuck you while you still have the balls to talk to me this way," Sasuke replied, tugging his boxers down and curling her fingers possessively around the throbbing hard muscle.

Sakura swallowed a gasp, clenching his teeth as he reached up to scratch a fingernail against Sasuke's chin and drag it down her throat to the hollow of her neck. "You know...for a genius, you are unbelievably stupid. I don't care how comfortable it makes you feel, I will not hate you."

_"What do you want from me?!"_ Sasuke snarled, her grip tightening enough to elicit a hiss of discomfort from Sakura.

"Abandonment," Sakura said, ruthlessly quelling the sharp stinging ache in his chest that wanted this moment to be tender and loving so badly. He took advantage of Sasuke's confusion and loosened grasp to duck his head away from the pressure holding him against the tree. "I want to hear you scream," he continued with a sly grin, clamping his teeth on Sasuke's earlobe to carefully knead and roll it over his tongue, savoring the tang of sweat and the smell of her hair.

"How many times have you opened your legs for a man," Sasuke demanded, sliding his thumb roughly up and down the underside of Sakura's member.

"None," Sakura whispered darkly, shuddering and giving the soft flesh between his teeth a harsh nip while he traced the line of Sasuke's collar bone with his nails.

"Good," Sasuke grunted, yanking down the zipper on Sakura's jacket with her free hand.

"Well, not before today, at any rate," Sakura mused, shrugging out of the jacket and tossing it aside as he tried to ignore the lingering foolish hope that things would somehow alter their course into a gentle romantic night.

"Naruto doesn't count," Sasuke scoffed, leaning back a bit to glower at Sakura. "He's..."

Sakura chuckled when Sasuke gritted her teeth and declined to finish the sentence. "Yeah, he is," he said, grabbing the back of her neck and quickly swiping his other hand over Sasuke's cut lips with a flash of green before she could jerk her head out of the way. "Now, now, you can't have everything your way tonight," he smirked, lacing his fingers in the short hair as he lowered his free hand to dig his nails into her lower back and drag them over her hip.

"So that's what they feel like," she said, curving her spine into the touch as she tilted her head and mirrored Sakura's smug expression.

"What?"

"The seals..." Sasuke purred maliciously, snaking her other arm under the last of Sakura's clothing.

"Son of a bitch!" Sakura gasped and flinched at the buzzing vibration skating along the inside of his thigh behind fingers that skittered and scratched lightly at the sensitive flesh.

"Until yesterday, I had been able to identify every emotion that came through except one," Sasuke said quietly, her black eyes gleaming and taunting as she moved her head so her lips were a hair's breadth from Sakura's. "You think about sex far too often."

"Like you're one to fucking talk," he countered, pulling her down for a forceful kiss as he slid the palm of his hand across her navel and up to her ribs so she could feel the full effect of the rattling seal.

Sasuke tensed for a split-second, and then there was a flurry of struggling movement as she whipped off Sakura's belt, threw the draping cloth aside, grabbed his ankles, and shoved his feet out of the way so she could get her knees under his thighs. Sakura dug his nails into her back and didn't relinquish the grip he had on her hair, stubbornly taking control of the kissing until Sasuke stopped using her teeth so damn much. It wasn't easy keeping his focus and keeping control when a dream he'd been nurturing for nearly seven years was right there happening to him.

He wanted to sink into the obliviousness of submission, let it all wash over him in a torrent of lust and carry him away to wherever Sasuke wanted because the pale fingers stroking him were driving him mad. He wanted Sasuke to just...WANT him so bad that she _would_ carry him away! He wanted to not be a _HE_, GOD DAMN IT! He wanted the body between his legs to be the he, and then he could be the she like he was _supposed_ to be! But that wasn't going to happen tonight, and he needed to get his shit together and _concentrate!_

Nails were raking across his chest, and Sakura couldn't stop himself from throwing his head back with a groan. He tried to blink himself back to reality, but it was all a fantasy anyway with alabaster skin pressing against him and perfect teeth marking his neck and black hair tickling his ear. Swallowing past the quickness of his breath, he clenched his teeth and fought his body's spiralling need for release by focusing on his hands. Unfortunately, he couldn't really think straight, so he mimicked Sasuke's movements.

The random idea made it startlingly easy for him to drag his mind back to coherence. He knew this body under his fingertips. He knew where to scratch and where to be feather-soft, how hard to grab and how to delicately squeeze flesh between his fingers. He knew where that over-sensitive bundle of nerves was, and he had a hand wrapped around him setting the pace that Sasuke preferred. He wasn't the only one screaming inside, wishing he _was_ the body in front of him.

Sasuke trembled under his ministrations, and he echoed it. He let her lead, following the hands exploring his frame and mapping out the same route on her skin until he felt almost inside-out as he choked in air and tried to keep his mind in his own body. It was so tempting to close his eyes and imagine the soft curves he was touching were his own, because he was being touched in the same places. But he couldn't let himself go, he had to _focus!_ And it was so hard to do that with Sasuke grinding into his hand and his groin, panting against his neck as she braced one arm against the tree over his shoulder, picking up speed with her other hand and thrusting her hips with more force.

It was Sakura's turn to bite down on Sasuke's shoulder, drawing out a strangled noise from the brunette as he tasted his way across to her throat. She quickened her pace more, but the movements were becoming erratic and insistent. Sakura muscled every ounce of willpower he had into resisting the storm of sensations threatening to push him over the edge, spitting out a curse and burying his face in Sasuke's sweaty neck, scratching at her taut back and silently begging her to reach her climax soon.

'Soon' as in _before_ he got to the point where he wouldn't be able to concentrate on what his hand was doing between her legs.

Meaning _'NOW'_, damn it all!

Slick tight heat quivered and clenched around his fingers, bucking fiercely into his pelvis and his vibrating palm as Sasuke's hand yanked on him a few more times before she hunched in and dug her nails into his hip. Sakura took a deep breath at the release of pressure, shifting forward a bit to ease the pins and needles dancing up his calves as Sasuke coughed and twisted and pushed harder against his hand. Oh, god, he wanted to cum right now with her writhing on him, but he let out a quiet groan and pulled his hand away to rest it on her thigh.

"Not yet," Sakura whispered, gulping down air to try to calm his racing heart and cool the fires in his blood. "I still haven't heard you scream," he growled, catching Sasuke's lust-hazed eyes the moment before he grabbed her waist and pinned her down on the wide tree branch.

A thrill shivered down his spine at the empty blackness where he knew the ground was supposed to be, at the startled gasp of pleasure and frantic grip of Sasuke's fingers on his hair when he bit the inside of her thigh, at the smooth gingery-lemon taste of her as he gently tongued his way to re-stimulating her before she had the chance to come down from her high. Getting to that third wave was a somewhat cruel journey at first because it had to happen straight off of the crest of the second wave, when nerve-endings were almost painfully jumpy and the continued bombardment of signals tore through like a rip tide.

It was so easy to give up and collapse to a stop when forced aftershocks jolted into swift fleeting orgasms that were there and gone in a fierce spasm, too powerful to grasp and too brief to enjoy. You had to work your way around them, push through them, dig deep and keep the fires stoked without letting the frustration blind you into turning away. Sakura knew this, and so he gingerly brushed and circled the tip of his tongue over the right places, keeping his rhythm uneven but always a steady presence.

The first part was all about maintenance; keeping Sasuke just within reach of that magnificent agony until her blood warmed up enough for her to stay there on her own. The second part was all about fury. Sakura knew Sasuke was there when the grip on his hair tightened, and her flinching squirms settled into a constant tension peppered with rattling shudders. He replaced his tongue with his fingers, kissing and biting and licking his way up her trembling stomach, and so very very thankful he'd had enough of a reprieve to get his own body back under his command.

When he increased the direct pressure under his circling thumb and started slipping his fingers back inside, Sasuke arched back and spat out a venomous curse. Sakura cackled and sank his teeth into Sasuke's waist, shivering at the feel of nails digging into the back of his neck and clawing their way down to his shoulder blades. He knew Sasuke was going through hell, and he had no qualms about feeling quite pleased with that fact. Being caught at the edge of a never ending orgasm that shrieks under your skin and teases you just enough with little quakes and quivers to drive you to fight and and howl for more, but keeps that genuine release just out of reach was an unmitigated torture. It was a fabulous torture, but it was still torture.

"Fuck! Hurry up!" Sasuke raged, scratching at her hair and twisting her hips up in frustration.

"I certainly hope you're not talking to me," Sakura said, leaning on his elbow and tracing an idle winding pattern over one of Sasuke's breasts. Bloody red eyes glared down at him, writhing with accusation and desire, and he smiled sweetly before turning his attention back to the flushed damp skin. "As long as you keep trying to hold back, you'll never get to feel the sky rip open for you."

"God damn it, I hate this body! I hate _you!"_

"I know," Sakura shrugged, ducking down to flick a nipple with the tip of his tongue. "I'm still not going to hate you back, though."

Sakura wrapped his lips around that nipple and sucked hard, rolling the pert sweat-salty flesh over his tongue and widening his mouth to let his teeth gingerly skate out over the supple cushiony skin. Sasuke choked out a moan and dug her heels into the tree branch, curving her back and pressing forward.

"I'm sick of waiting," she snarled.

Sakura was about to reply when he abruptly found himself shoved back, clutching at the branch below him and the trunk behind his shoulders to keep himself from falling as his boxers were ripped off. There were lips on his, a tongue plunging in with a hungry demand for action, and hands wrapped around the cock he had been doing so well trying to ignore. Everything went hazy and he bucked his hips up reflexively, lacing his fingers in Sasuke's hair and scratching down her back as he slid and twined his tongue against hers.

It was the slippery weight of legs maneuvering to straddle him and rest against the sides of his hips that had him cracking his eyes open, slowly blinking the drunken fog out of his head. It was the rigid tension in Sasuke's frame, the hitch in her breath against his lips as if she was bracing herself for something, and the fact that her hands were holding but no longer moving along his length that had his eyes flying wide open in frightened shock. Jerking his head back, he darted his hands down to her waist and held her perfectly still, frantically pumping chakra into his fingers to keep a steady grip on her wet skin.

"Wait!" Sakura gasped, trying to clear out the last of the haze and wishing Sasuke wasn't still gripping him, wasn't kneeling over him and hovering an inch from the sex he wanted so bad he couldn't even stand it, wasn't still so close to his mouth where he could taste her breath, wasn't staring him down with predatory black eyes that wanted and NEEDED!

"I already said _I'm sick of waiting,"_ she hissed waspishly. "It'll be easier if I just get it over with in one shot, and you know damn well you want this too, now let go of me."

"No," Sakura said firmly, refusing to let his hold waver in the slightest.

"Who's holding back now?" Sasuke sneered, tracing her fingers up Sakura's shaft and circling the head lazily before bringing one hand up to ease her own throbbing discomfort.

"You're wrong about it being easier!" Sakura persisted, shaking his head and shivering at the touch and trying to keep his mind _clear._ "I thought the same thing when I tried out my first toy, and I was wrong then, too. So, trust me," he said with quiet force, digging his nails into her hips and looking her straight in the eyes. _"Trust me_ when I say I _never_ made that mistake again. You'll lose all the pleasure you've built up in the blink of an eye, and you won't get it back. Not even if I heal you as fast as I can, because that kind of pain isn't something you can just recover from in a few minutes."

"Then how do you propose we solve this dilemma?" Sasuke asked, leaning forward to nibble her way along Sakura's jaw while her thumb stroked back and forth over his weeping tip with a hypnotic rhythm.

"S-stop using your damn head," he stammered, fighting and losing against the electricity zinging through his groin. "It'll go faster than you think, just take it easy and let your body guide you."

"Fine. My body wants you to let the fuck go."

Sakura bit his lip, letting the chakra fade from his hands and relaxing the muscles in his arms so Sasuke was free to move. He slid one palm up her back, but kept his other hand on her hip because she was slowly sinking down and panting in his hair, swallowing as she paused and let out little noises right behind his ear. It took everything he had to keep his hips from rolling up to meet her, to urge her down so he could bury himself in that tight fluttering heat, to just breathe her name and tell her everything he so desperately wanted her to hear.

But, of course he couldn't do that, because as weird as it sounded, now was not the right time for loving confessions. So, he settled for cussing and silent wishes, praying he would be able to last longer than her and getting his clumsy hands to move to those sensitive spots he'd mapped out earlier. Teeth and tongue and lips moved against his throat, murmuring approval between gasping shudders as she relaxed and sank and tightened and stopped and pretty much set about destroying his entire world in the best way possible. This was everything he'd always wanted, and none of it was happening they way he'd always hoped.

Sakura wasn't going to complain, however, because Uchiha Sasuke was on his lap, fully seated and breathless as she slid her thumbs down the sides of his neck, her eyes slightly out of focus and watching him with the faintest hint of a smile ghosting at her lips. It was a brief moment of something he couldn't define, but he would treasure it till the end of his days. Then Sasuke closed her eyes and shifted her knees, resting her forehead against Sakura's and setting her hands on his shoulders.

Sakura smiled, wistful for whatever it was he could feel slipping away, and gave a soft laugh for the warmth that still lingered behind. Grabbing generous handfuls of Sasuke's ass, he bent his knees a bit and tilted his head forward to brush his lips against her open mouth.

"Scream," he whispered, nipping at her bottom lip.

Black eyes snapped open, and the rest of the world fell away in a torrent of motion and sensations. Everything was slick and tight, sweat rolling down in the cool night air to make the salty taste mingle with the tangy musky scents. It was primitive and carnal, a struggle for release and freedom that could only be brought on by grabbing hold and tangling limbs together. She started off hesitant and jerky, but when she found her rhythm he rolled his hips up to get that angle she was searching for.

It was skin slapping against skin, getting faster and harder as Sasuke finally started shouting, her eyes rolling back as her face twisted into a mask of furious concentration that bordered on painful. Her rhythm faltered as she cursed and ordered, her body too wracked to obey her demands with the over-stimulation that had been going on and on and on. Sakura took over, shifting their positions quickly and getting that pace back before Sasuke lost sight of that third wave looming in the distance.

He knew what that stunned realization was like, being able to feel the orgasm creeping into your blood like liquid gold and instinctively knowing the unbelievable glowing warmth seeping through your skin was going to pitch you up into a place you never thought existed. He understood that, and as he thrust into the body that rocked beneath him and clawed at his back until she could hook her leg over his shoulder and dig her heel into the back of his neck, he felt an astonishing amount of power.

She was wrapped around him like a damn snare, but he was the one driving her to it. He bowed to every command she gave, and he watched her fall apart and scream in helpless abandon. Her climax tightened around him, surging and thrumming and bucking, and he followed her down into the blinding clarity of release.

When he drifted back into himself, gasping for air and letting his trembling arms fold in so he could hunch over Sasuke's heaving chest and let her leg slide off his shoulder, he didn't even try to think of anything to say. His vision was foggy and he blinked to clear it, surprised at the moisture that fell and merged with the sweat dripping off the end of his nose. But that surprise was nothing compared to the fingers combing through his hair and the voice slurring words that almost sounded like a vague attempt at a comforting tone.

"Don't fall asleep on me, damn it," Sasuke mumbled. "We're going to fall out of this stupid tree if we sleep here. We have to get back to the cabin."

"Fuck me..." Sakura groaned, slumping onto his hip and wiggling his toes to try to dispel the pins and needles prickling his useless legs.

"No. I've had enough for tonight."

"Shut up," he snerked, forcing his body to listen to him and push him back onto his knees where he sat dazedly on his heels.

"You look like a train wreck," Sasuke snorted with a touch of amusement.

"Kiss my ass, so do you," Sakura retorted with a weary grin, then took a deep breath and held out his hand. "Come on, lets hobble back home so we can pass out properly."

Sasuke grunted and took his hand, heaving herself up so she could swing her legs over the branch and drop to the ground. Sakura followed suit, scrubbing his face and focusing his chakra to enhance his vision enough to find his scattered clothing easily. He passed the 'half-yukata' to Sasuke, then fumbled into his boxers before shoving his arms through the open jacket and slung his belt over his shoulder. Scowling down at his legs, he kneaded the muscles and tried to shake out the prickly feeling that just wouldn't go away.

"Are you coming?" Sasuke asked over her shoulder a few meters away, the dark cloth draped around her like a cloak.

Sakura nodded and shrugged at his uncooperative legs, stretching the slightly wobbly limbs out into an easy walk to get the blood flowing again. He didn't expect the short stroll back to the cabin would sap him of his strength, nor did he expect a slender arm to loop around his waist as he stopped yet again to catch his breath. And by the time they entered the open field surrounding the house, he was leaning heavily against Sasuke as his head swam. He couldn't really make out what Naruto was saying as the blonde sprinted toward them, but the last thing he remembered clearly was being confused by the dark shadows around her gold eyes.

When Sakura woke up, his head was throbbing painfully and it felt like his eyelids were being peeled off by too much bright light. He grumbled and hunched his shoulders petulantly, squirreling his head deeper under the blanket and snuggling closer to the warm body in front of him. His movements caused a groggy reply, but the arm over his shoulders drew him closer and there was a contented sigh in his hair as the body relaxed into slumber again.

Wait...why was there a body right next to him?

Snapping his eyes open, he winced immediately at the glaring sunlight and spent the next few minutes blinking until he could make out a dark shirt over a broad chest, a lean muscled tan arm, a defined jaw line below whisker-marked cheeks, and scruffy blonde hair. Another full minute passed as he absorbed all that information with dizzying comprehension. Then he sat bolt upright, looked down at his chest, and _squealed_ like a 12 year-old girl. Naruto flew out from under the blanket, Sasuke doing the same thing from **_HER_** (HER HER HER HER HER!) other side, the two young **_MEN_** (YES! FUCK YES MEN!) crouched and ready for an attack as they blinked owlishly in the sunshine.

"Wha...?" Naruto asked blearily.

"I have breasts!" Sakura shouted...no...PROCLAIMED to the world at large, clutching her jacket protectively around her chest and kicking her legs in unrestrained glee.

"Huh...?" Naruto continued intelligently, blinking as he flumped down to the ground when it became clear to his addled mind that there was no life-threatening attack.

Sasuke teetered on his feet for a moment, shaking his head and scowling at no one until he turned his mulishly unhappy gaze toward his teammates.

"HOLY SHIT, I HAVE A DICK AGAIN!" Naruto crowed at the top of his lungs, pulling the waistband of his boxers out so he could peer down between his legs with a giddy watery smile. "Welcome back, little man! I missed you so much!"

Sakura snickered and giggled, too happy to even care about propriety as she drew her legs up and wrapped her arms around her shins. She and Naruto both looked up at Sasuke expectantly. There was a significant pause that only seemed to make one of them uncomfortable.

"...I'm going to go take a shower..." Sasuke groused as his cheeks flushed, stalking off toward the cabin and throwing a dirty look over his shoulder as his teammates roared with delighted laughter and didn't bother to hide the fact that they were openly staring at his decidedly well-toned ass in the somewhat form-fitting slacks he'd been hiding under his 'man-skirt'.

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**END**

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**[** It only took me three chapters and 30,000 words to technically fill this prompt, I AM OBVIOUSLY A GENIUS AT BREVITY! XD Gah, the yuri scene is a slight fail, but I didn't want it to get boring and repetitive with the outside POV narration. My apologies! =(

I would like to say thank you all so much for following, favoriting, reviewing, and reading! This story was a very challenging task, so it means the world to me that you enjoyed any part of it! =D

**Ah, and a note to Confusing Ratman:** I'm so sorry, but I couldn't really do any of those things in this story. This was a prompt request from another site, and all they actually asked for was...well, smut. XD I kind of went above and beyond that because I had to find an entertaining way to rationalize this particular gender-swap pairing in order for me to simply be able to write it. Your suggestion is certainly a possibility, and it would definitely cause a lot of hilariously awkward chaos. However, someone else will have to write it, because I don't think I'll be continuing this past what the prompter asked for. =)

So, if anyone does want to pick up where this story left off, or just take the idea and run with it however you like, you are more than free to do so! =D **]**


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